Serpents
by MrsTater
Summary: After two years with Remus, full moon etiquette continues to elude Tonks, dredging up memories of painful past failures. Voldemort's attack on a fellow Order member puts everything into perspective for her, but will Remus see the light?
1. Prologue: Judgment Day

_**A/N: Written for the June, 2007 Last Chance Full Moon Showdown at MetamorFic Moon, for the prompts weakness and "In the light of Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided," this fic is set in my Caring For Magical Creatures ficverse. I originally didn't intend to post here because it skips ahead in the story timeline, but since my WIPs are on hiatus for the foreseeable future, due to the need to focus on original writing projects, I've decided to go ahead and post this and another multi-chaptered Creatures-verse story so as not to leave readers totally bereft. Thanks to all of you who've asked about Creatures. I'm sorry I don't have time right now to keep up with my WIPs, but I am happy to know there are still people reading my work out there. Hope this satisfies your fic appetites for a while. :)**_  
**_And now, on with the fic! _**  
_**

* * *

  
**_  
_**  
**_**Prologue: Judgment Day**

**_June, 1994_**

If Tonks had been required, on pain of death, to pick the worst day in the whole history of Wizardkind to come up for Auror qualification, there couldn't possibly be a worse one than today.

_Well -- the day your second cousin was convicted of murdering thirteen innocent Muggles and was sentenced to life in Azkaban would have been pretty crap timing, as well._

But the day after your escaped convict second cousin Confounded three students into thinking he was innocent so they could help him get past the Dementors and escape capture is, at the moment, equally crappy.

The creak of a door startled her from the _Daily Prophet_ she'd been hunched over. She looked up to see her flatmate, Des, peeking warily out of her bedroom -- where, for once, thankfully, there was no monotonous thumping R&B bass line.

"Your mum still here?" Des whispered, the roundness of her eyes accentuated comically by her skin looking darker than usual in the shadows of the dimly lit bedroom.

_Almost_ laughing, Tonks shook her head. "She set the table, called me Nymphadora at least nine hundred times, tried to talk me out of sitting my exams and getting a nice safe job, an Apothecary, maybe, since I'm good at Potions--"

"Not really a safe job when you're _you_," Des interrupted. "I mean, splash a little Essence of Belladonna on you, and your skin dries out and sloughs off, and then it won't be your daft hair your mum's having a fit about, will it?"

Glaring, Tonks went on, "She said not to bother with the washing up because she doesn't want her good breakfast dishes shattered into a million pieces, and left."

Des heaved a sigh of relief and emerged from her room wearing very short pyjama shorts and a tight tank top emblazoned with a rude slogan. She flicked her wand over her shoulder, and the wireless crackled to life with the crooning of Boyz II Wizardz.

"Didn't mean to be rude or anything not coming out," Des said, rubbing her eyes as she made a bee-line for the kitchen and the cooker. "Only I haven't had caffeine yet..." She tapped the kettle and said over the screech, "and your mum scares the shit out of me."

"She does that. 'Specially when your pyjamas say, _Save a broom; ride a Quidditch player_. You do realise that as the Tutshill Tornados' Mediwitch, you're supposed to saving the players, and not their broomsticks?"

Putting a tea bag in her mug to steep, Des grinned and shuffled to the table. "They play better when they're getting regular shags. You'll see next year when they win the cup. Ooh..." The spread on the table caught her eye. "Blimey, your mum cooked you a full breakfast?"

Tonks removed her feet from the chair across from her and kicked it out. "Tuck in, mate. I'm too nervous to stomach anything but toast, and I don't fancy Mum coming to do the washing up and lecturing me about eating properly if I really intend to go through with this mad notion about becoming an Auror." She sipped her tea, then added, "And don't worry. She was too preoccupied with me and the news about Black to remember I had a flatmate, much less a rude one."

"Hence the cooking, eh?"

"Yep."

As Tonks resumed reading the paper, Des looked up from heaping her plate. "Shouldn't you be cramming or something? I mean it is your Stealth practical, right?"

Tonks stared at her. "Operative word being _practical_, just what do you suggest I cram?"

Shrugging, Des took a mouthful of baked beans. "Dunno. Balance charms or something?"

"Only thing I'll be cramming is this toast down your throat if you start with me, too."

Des raised one hand in a gesture of innocence as she sprinkled pepper on a tomato with the other. "I know it's too early to have starched robes and a tie on--"

"Mum insisted on re-ironing them for me, even though I did it last night."

"--but there's no need to be bitchy. And I've seen your ironing charms."

Tonks slumped in her chair and ran a hand through her cropped blue hair. "Sorry. It's just that I'm just _really_ stressed about my Stealth practical."

"What I said about my Quidditch boys applies to you, too, you know." Des took a bite of toast then, covering her mouth with her fingers, said, "Why aren't you with Remus, having a lovely, slow morning shag? Term's over, isn't it?"

Tonks' fingers tightened, crunching her toast. Yet another reason why today was crap timing for her first day of Auror qualification exams: last night had been a full moon.

_Thanks to exam week at Hogwarts, his schedule's barely allowed the odd goodnight Floo, much less sex._

"He's got exams to mark."

"At seven bloody thirty in the morning? And the DADA exam's a practical, isn't it?"

"He's been ill, as well."

Des chewed deliberately, one thin pencilled eyebrow raised on her smooth brown forehead. Tonks' stomach knotted. She'd used the excuse a lot -- eight times, to be precise, since she and Remus started going out -- and Des didn't seem to like it. Was she suspicious? Noticing the pattern of Remus' "illnesses"?

_No, you conspiracy theory-loving prat! Only Aurors...or Auror cadets...or people who were going to flunk their exams and get shunted into MLE...think like that._

"Ill a lot, isn't he?" Des speared a tomato with her fork. "You know when they say about older men being better in bed, they're not talking about sick beds, right?"

"Lay off, will you?"

"Sorry," Des muttered, "only he might've owled you or something, that's all. Honestly, sometimes it looks to me like he's making excuses because he's not that into you."

"Look!" Tonks set down her mug so hard that she sloshed tea onto the platter of tomatoes. "Stop judging things you haven't got a bloody clue about! Remus is--"

A sudden crackle across the flat cut Tonks off, and she whipped her head around just as green flames exploded in the fireplace grate.

"Here," Des finished her sentence when Remus' smiling face appeared in the Floo.

The sight of him had the approximate affect of a Banishing Charm on the anxiety that had settled on her shoulders like a weight last night, and kept her from sleeping and eating. Calling his name, she leapt from her chair--

--only to catch her hip on the back and toppling it as she flailed to keep upright.

"Damn it!" she hissed, slapping the chair after she'd righted it. "I'm so going to fail my Stealth practical!"

"Wotcher, Remus!" Des greeted. "Get your skinny arse in here! Tonks' Mum sent over proper brekkers."

Remus glanced at Tonks as though waiting for her invitation, and when she told him hell yes, of course he was welcome to join them, he got out of the Floo.

As if Summoned, Cato, the orphaned Kneazle Remus had found on the school grounds and talked Tonks into adopting, and which had nothing to do with her but hiss if she made eye contact with him, darted from underneath the sofa and, purring like a bloody car motor, which he _never_ did, rubbed against Remus' legs.

"Hello, Desdemona." Remus dusted off his robes, which hung even more loosely than usual off his thin frame, before dropping into a crouch to fondle Cato's ears and neck and murmur to him about how he clearly hadn't been turning his nose up at Tonks' food, even if he hadn't taken to her.

"Just Des!" Tonks' flatmate protested. "_Gawd!_ Think you'd be used to that, going out with Miss Don't-Call-Me-Nymphadora Tonks!"

Tonks rolled her eyes, but Remus smiled pleasantly up at her as he rose. Slowly, stiffly, with the slightest of furrows in his brow, Tonks noted.

"Yes, well," he said, "she doesn't say that to me often, since I've got a pet name for her."

Getting up to take her plate and teacup to the sink, Des smirked. "Are your ears burning? Only I was just asking _Elphine_ why you hadn't come over to shag the nerves out of her."

"Sod off -- _Desi_."

This earned Tonks an obscene hand gesture, but Des did return to her room, allowing them their privacy.

Tonks wished she'd thought to say, _Sod off, Desi, and turn off that crap you call music._

"Musicians who spell _boys_ and _wizards_ with a Z ought to be sent to Azkaban," she said.

Remus smirked. "Wizards _is_ spelt with a Z."

"Why, you--"

Tonks raised a hand to sock him playfully in the shoulder, but his hands caught her wrists deftly, pulling her in for a kiss. It was the sort of slow, lovely kiss she knew from experience led to Des' prescribed morning sex.

Or it did when he didn't pull back after a second or two, that was.

She didn't mind the brevity of the kiss; his eyes, though shot through with red, spidery lines, and rimmed with grey fatigue, held her, caressing her as his careful fingertips traced her face.

"You, Elphine," he murmured, "shall be _brilliant_ on your Stealth exam."

"Think I may, now I've had a proper good luck kiss."

He leant in and brushed his lips to hers again. Her arms slid beneath his, encircling his slender waist, and when she splayed her hands across his back, pulling him into her, he kissed her a little more intently, his warm tongue opening her lips and gliding with hers. Slow heat coursed all through her, and it was as if fear had held her in a frozen shell, but now his care and affection melted that, releasing her into her own skin again, with no more troubling thoughts than that she really hated R&B in the morning, and that the stupid Kneazle really needed to get the idea that two were company, but a third rubbing against her boyfriend and swiping vengefully at her uniform, was definitely a crowd.

Well -- there was one thing that was _slightly_ more troubling.

Or maybe not troubling so much as..._earth-shattering._

It wasn't the first time a certain word that started with _L_ and rhymed with _shove_ had whispered to her, sending shivers down her neck and butterflies into flight in her stomach that were as real as the ones produced by Remus' lips and the wordless messages they spoke against her mouth. Nor was it the first time she'd brushed aside the L-word before it could drift up from her heart and form fully in her mind.

_Cos, Tonks, if you're totally honest with yourself, you know you lashed out at Des asking whether Remus is all that into you because you're scared shitless she's right._

Not that he didn't participate as enthusiastically in their relationship; the way he was kissing her now proved that.

_But enthusiasm isn't love, Tonks. It's not even partnership. You won't settle for less. It's not in you. No matter what anybody says, Hufflepuffs don't have to settle._

There was so much he'd always held back from her, right from the beginning, and at times, horrible as she felt for thinking it, Tonks had wondered if his being a werewolf wasn't a convenient excuse not to give himself as fully to her as she, deep down, wanted to give in to him. She couldn't give that without his reciprocation, and not just because her boggart was her blurting out, _I love you!_ She'd worked too hard to get where she was, to be who she was, to commit herself to an emotion she knew would be all-consuming, requited or not. She refused to let go if it meant losing herself.

Except...he was cupping her face in his hands, suckling her lower lip, lightly scraping his teeth over it with a raw insistence she'd never felt before in his kisses. If she didn't know better, Remus was seeking solace, too.

And then something in her heart pinched.

Of course Remus had come over to kiss her good luck, but last night had been a bad night for him. He always seemed more needy for her after a transformation, but this time it was more than that. Surely knowing that while he was trapped for a night in his office in the form of a wolf, Black had been on the school grounds, and only by a miracle had not hurt more of the people Remus cared about, troubled him deeply.

Tonks' blood surged. Was he distressed? Had he needed to see her so she could soothe him?

_Don't be bloody ridiculous. Black's the one part of himself Remus' has held back the most. You don't really think he'd open up to you now, without your prompting?_

She pulled her mouth from his, wanting to look at him, but trailed light kisses over the gaunt hollows of his stubble-roughened cheeks, hoping to be surreptitious about reading him. But Remus kept his eyes closed. Tonks tried not to frown and let him feel her frustration as she pressed her lips to his skin. His eyes were far more likely shut because he was affected by her, not because he was hiding from her.

_You're right to be wary, Tonks, but this time you're overestimating the power of the male brain, even if it is Remus. It's other bits that think at times like this._

With one last kiss on his lips, she relaxed her arms around him. Taking a step back, she slid her hands from his back, but kept a light hold on his waist, because she was definitely affected by him, and for all her deep thinking, felt light-headed and as if the floor weren't quite solid beneath her feet. Remus' chin scratched her as he kissed her forehead, then rested his against hers, his hands drifting downward from her face, skimming the thin sliver of her neck above the collar of her dress shirt, over her shoulders, finally settling, hooked, in the small of her back. It was then, with a deep sigh, that his blue eyes opened -- barely. He was dead on his feet, Tonks could tell.

"It was really sweet of you to come." She reached up to push a stray strand of hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. "I know you'd rather be lying-in after a mad week."

"Sleep when I could be kissing you?"

Tonks went rigid in his arms.

A line.

_There's something on his mind -- you know there is -- and you've given him the chance to get it out, even if it was just a little to start with...And he gave you a bloody line._

Hands falling away from him as she felt a tightening, as of a physical bond, around her heart, she turned sharply in his arms, and he released her.

"I ought to at least try to eat something besides toast," she said, heading back to the table. "Help yourself. I wasn't kidding about there being enough to feed all of Hogwarts."

"Thank you...I'm not particularly hungry."

Resuming her seat, Tonks glanced up at him and saw that he was looking distractedly, one hand working through his hair as the fingers of the other balled into a fist, then flexed again, at his side. Merlin, his entire demeanour had changed whilst her back was turned for all of a second. He wasn't pacing, but he looked as though he might start at any moment. _Like he was caged..._

"Have a seat anyway," she said, kicking out the chair beside her. "And some tea. You're making me nervous."

"I'm sorry," he said, sitting, and then looked almost startled as Cato jumped into his lap. But the Kneazle rubbing its head against Remus' robes, kneading its paws on his lap, calmed him slightly, and Tonks watched his shoulders relax as his fingers occupied themselves stroking the wiry calico fur.

Also noticing that his eyes had drifted to the _Daily Prophet_ lying between their placemats, she decided to throw him another line. "Talking of Hogwarts, that was pretty mad what happened last night, yeah? Did you hear any of the racket with the Dementors?"

"No." Remus shook his head. "I mean yes. I mean..."

Cato stopped purring -- which was a first for the Kneazle, at least when Remus' lap was in the picture -- and looked quizzically up at him, ears pricked, alert.

"Remus? What's wrong?"

She'd never seen anything like it, a face other than her own going through such a drastic transformation in the blink of an eye. She glanced at Des' bedroom door, not wanting to think about what sort of observations her flatmate would have about the older man in her life in this moment. She'd never thought -- not since her initial snap assessment of him -- that the lines around his eyes and mouth made him look old; just as if he'd _lived_, and with great humour. Now, for the first time, the only word that came to mind was _careworn_.

_Remus did that living a long time before you came into this world. The things that shaped him into the man he is today, which haunt him, happened when you still wore pigtails and were driving your mum mad trying to figure out how to morph more teeth to lose so the Tooth Fairy would have to visit more often._

No wonder he holds back from you.

"There's something," he croaked, staring blankly at his teacup as his fingers picked at the handle, "a great many somethings, actually, that I must tell you."

Tonks sat up straight in her chair.

_Speak too soon?_

"I hate to burden you on the day of your exam," he went on, looking up and meeting her eye.

"No!" Tonks' hand shot out to touch his. Cato hissed, but she gripped Remus' fingers anyway. "No, it's okay. If something's bothering you, I want to know. Anytime. Merlin knows I dump stuff on you at really crap times."

The faintest of smiles appeared, and a few of the lines seemed to vanish.

_You helped him._

"You'll hear anyway as soon as you set foot in the Ministry, and I'd rather you hear it from..." His gaze flickered away from her again, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. "...from me."

Nodding, Tonks said, "I understand."

His lips curved upward a little more, but not because his smile was widening. The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened, and his eyes looked darker. A bitter quality had crept into the smile.

"No," he said. "I'm not sure this is something that can be understood."

Tonks opened her mouth to ask what the hell he meant, but found she had no words.

"This morning," he said, "before I Flooed, I...I gave Professor Dumbledore my notice."

A bit of toast Tonks hadn't even realised she'd picked up plonked into her mug of stone cold tea. "You...?"

"Resigned," said Remus. "I will be leaving Hogwarts today."

_Resigned? Leaving **today**?_ Tonks' brain struggled to comprehend the words, and keep up with the new ideas.

"The Headmaster has graciously arranged for a carriage to escort me to the Hogsmeade Station, so I can catch the train to Brockenhurst, even though I hardly deserve consideration after what I've done."

"What have you done?" Tonks asked. "Why would you quit? Is it the curse on the DADA job?"

"_I'm_ cursed," said Remus with a short, bitter laugh.

Still struggling to process what she was hearing, Tonks could hardly believe her ears as Remus rattled off more words about himself than he'd ever spoken at one time.

_Who are you kidding? More words than he's ever spoken in all the bloody time you've known him._

He began with something she didn't quite follow about a magic map, except that he drew a folded parchment from his pocket, spread it on top of the newspaper, asked her to touch her wand to it and try to make the invisible ink reveal itself, at which point a simple _Revelo_ caused words to appear:

_Mr. Moony presents his compliments to the lovely Miss Tonks, but registers no little amount of surprise that an Auror-to-Be didn't think of a more creative spell than Revelo._

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to congratulate him not only on securing the affections of a damn good-looking bird, but on mastering the art of being sarky, as girls really love that.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that either of you ever got laid, and Merlin's Balls! "The lovely Miss Tonks" is my little **cousin**?

Mr. Wormtail just wants to know whether Mr. Moony has told the lovely Miss Tonks about his furry little problem.

Tonks laughed, though she was really confused as to why Remus would show her a joke shop item when he'd just told her he'd resigned from Hogwarts. Maybe it was all just one great prank? Not terribly funny, or connected, but maybe he was just a bit mad from lack of sleep.

But no -- then he was telling her that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs were him and his three schoolmates, nicknames earned because they'd secretly learnt to become Animagi to help Remus through his transformations...And somehow that was behind Black being innocent of the Muggle murders, and Peter Pettigrew, who was alive, was the _real_ murderer, and worse, had betrayed James and Lily Potter to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (only Remus said the V-word without flinching)...All of which Remus had discovered last night because the Marauder's Map showed Pettigrew skulking about the school grounds, which had resulted in Remus losing his head, forgetting the final and most important dose of Wolfsbane Potion, transforming on school grounds, where he might have killed Harry, some other students, Black, Snape...

As he finished, his normally steady hands shook, rattling his teacup on its saucer as he set it down. He fisted Cato's fur.

Tonks was shaking, too.

"I don't believe it," she said.

"I confess, I cannot quite myself," said Remus, increasingly more pulled together as he stroked Cato's back. "I don't remember the actual...the part where I was transformed." The corners of his mouth hitched. "Hagrid found me in the Forbidden Forest after moonset and woke me asking if I'd eaten the Hippogriff."

"_Could_ you eat a Hippogriff when you're a...?"

Remus raised an eyebrow, a sparkle coming into his eyes. Surprisingly, seeing him look like that, like the familiar smug git who drove her mad in every way, so calm and collected and cool after he'd just told her everything he had, as if that were all there was to it, infuriated her.

The band of emotion constricting her heart snapped.

"Did Black escape because you helped him?"

That band-like thing that felt tied around her heart coiled into a tight knot, found satisfaction at seeing his jaw muscle twitch.

"I wish I could have helped him," Remus said, "rather than spoiling all his chances at being exonerated, whilst Peter goes free. But that's the nature of Dark Creatures -- to ruin everything."

The self-loathing in his voice startled the anger right out of Tonks, though it did nothing to relieve her confusion. "If you didn't help him, then why the hell are you resigning? The timing's crap -- Fudge will suspect you were helping Black...Sirius...all along--"

"Snape outed me," said Remus, dully, sitting back in his chair.

"Why that greasy--!" Tonks whacked her knees on the table as she tried to stand, but Remus caught her arm.

"I've only myself to blame," he said, releasing her. "If it were merely an issue of my condition being made public, if my tenure had been untarnished by incident, then Dumbledore might have convinced even the most sceptical of parents that there was no danger in my being part of the staff."

"He could still--"

"Unfortunately for werewolves," he said, "we're lucky to be allowed even one strike against us. I've no doubt Dumbledore would fight for me, but I will not subject the school to the scandal that would arise as a result. Not when it's all due to me betraying his trust when he went to such lengths so that I could attend school, not when I kept the truth from him all year."

Tonks heard it all as if she were sat in a theatre, watching a scene played out by two actors on a stage. She waited, breathlessly, for the response of the girl with the blue hair and heart-shaped face, which came a long moment later.

"What about _my_ trust?"

She realised it was actually _her_ who'd spoken, because the words were thick and sharp and stuck in her raw throat. And she was standing now -- this time Remus hadn't stopped her. He was sopping up the tea she'd upset, which had sloshed onto Cato, who was yowling and leaping from Remus' lap to go and sulk, casting hateful looks over his shoulder at Tonks.

"I--" Remus began, but then fell silent. His gaze bent, head dropped, and he stared at tea-stained napkin in his hand.

"I found out what you are and stayed with you!" she cried. "I knew you were an unregistered werewolf, and I kept it secret! I let you take me home..._to bed_!" _He was your first. You trusted him so..._ "And you didn't even have the decency to tell me..."

She shook her head, blinking back tears. She _would not_ cry. Gritting her teeth, she pounded her open palms on the table, crinkling the Marauder's Map.

"You assumed I wanted success as an Auror so badly that I'd spill the beans about things that were _your_ responsibility to bring to light!"

"I was wrong," said Remus, desperation in his voice, "completely wrong, Elphine, and I'm sorry--"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" she bellowed. Barely registering in her peripheral that Des' bedroom door was cracked, she went on, "You haven't any right, none at all, and you're _damned_ right you were wrong. You're a bastard, Remus Lupin!"

"I was afraid this would happen," said Remus, getting up. "You don't need to be wound up before your examination."

"_Wound up_?" Tonks flung back. "You call this _wound up_?"

"Furious," Remus amended, tightly. "You certainly don't need to be furious before your examination."

"Try _effing_ furious!"

Remus looked at her for a long time, then picked up the Marauder's map, carefully folded it, and tucked it into his pocket. "I should go."

Tonks followed him to the door. "That's right, Lupin -- run away from Hogwarts before they can sack you! Run away from me before--"

She lurched forward as her foot caught on the leg of the sofa table. As if it were second nature, Remus wheeled and caught her round the waist and kept her upright. Pushing him away, she tripped over her feet, landing on her backside on the table that had tripped her up to begin with, and the lamp crashed to the floor.

"_Damn it!_ That's Des' lamp!"

"S'okay!" called Des from her room, apparently not giving a damn that they knew she was eavesdropping on them. Not that _they_ had done anything to keep her from hearing. "I hate that ugly thing!"

Tonks shot Remus an accusatory look anyway. "_Why_ are you doing this to me today? It's my _Stealth_ final."

"I'm sorry," Remus said again, quietly. "_Reparo._"

Somehow, watching the shards of porcelain put themselves back together again, almost good as new, and Remus replace it carefully on the table at her hip, made Tonks feel as if she were crumbling.

"I wouldn't have told, you know," she said. "If you'd told me in confidence, I wouldn't have betrayed you."

"A true Hufflepuff."

Any other time, it probably would have been the right thing to say, but not today. Tonks folded her arms over her chest, steeling herself, hardening her resolve even though whatever had broken inside of her pierced and stabbed.

"I wouldn't have betrayed you, but I probably would have broken up with you."

Ignoring the stricken look on his pale face, acting on the orders of her constricted heart, she stood and strode to the door. "In fact, I know I would have, because that's what I'm doing now." She opened the door and stood to the side, arms still crossed. "Please leave."

Without protest, he did as she said, moving quickly even though he looked older than his years and very ill. He did pause in the hall and turn back to apologise again.

"I am sorry...Tonks." He looked like it had required some effort to call her by her surname, and though Tonks didn't want to admit it, she hurt to hear him say it. "Sorrier than I can say. Good luck today." He reached out, as though to take her hand, but then drew back, looking forlorn. "I'll be thinking of you today."

"I'd rather you didn't."

She shut the door.

After she'd cast a _Silencio_ on Cato, who'd come out of hiding to meow mournfully at the door and hiss at Tonks, total silence hovered thickly in the flat, as Des' wireless had either gone to a news break, or she'd shut the damn thing off because the lovers' quarrel had been so much more entertaining. In contrast, Tonks' jumbled thoughts clamoured cacophonously in her head. She slumped against the door, sliding down till she was sat on the hard floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Her head fell backward, and she beat it once against the door behind her, but then decided she really needed her brain in tact for her exam.

_Her exam._

_God...You just broke up with Remus...You almost let yourself love him...You almost thought he loved you...And now you're furious at him, and you're finished, over. Eight months, and nothing to show for it except a fail mark in Stealth._

This is why Kingsley warned you not to mix love and work. 

Actually, it wasn't, and she knew it, which only made her more frustrated.

Desperate to unleash, she Summoned a teacup from the table, then pitched it at the wall, nevermind her mum; she'd just say she'd tried washing up. It crunched and shattered into a million pieces.

"BLOODY BUGGERING HELL!" Des burst out of her bedroom, clutching her wireless, a wild look on her face. "Tonks, you've got to hear..."

Balancing it on her hip, she did a volume charm just in time for Tonks to catch the announcer's voice say, _That's right. According to Mr. Lucius Malfoy, father of third-year Slytherin Draco, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is out yet another Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Remus Lupin has given notice of his resignation on grounds that he's a werewolf. Can you imagine? Between that and escaped convict Sirius Black turning up there twice this term, education in this country's really going to the **dogs**. Can you believe it? A bleeding were--_

"Shut it off, Des."

Des did. Feeling crushed by the weight of the silence, and of her conscience telling her she was a horrible person for breaking up with a man who couldn't be more humiliated, Tonks slumped over her knees and clutched her hair between her fingers.

"Bloody hell, Tonks," Des whispered. "You've been sleeping with a _werewolf_."

Slowly, Tonks raised her head. Her eyes locked on Des' t-shirt.

"Should have stuck with the Quidditch players, huh?"

* * *

_**A/N: A bit of an angsty start, but I promise the next part will see Remus and Tonks in a different time, and in a different (and hopefully better!) place. I'd love to know what y'all think of it, and as incentive, I offer reviewers the Remus of their choice to Floo (or Apparate, if you haven't got a fireplace and don't have anti-Apparition wards around your property) to you with a good luck kiss for whatever you're needing some good wishes for: noble Remus, who is so honorable that he'd rather have his good name besmirched on the WWN than bring any disgrace to Hogwarts; Magical Creatures specialist Remus, whose innate goodness is sensed by animals great and small whose affection for him will only enhance how gentle and adorable he his; or Mr. Moony, who turns up wearing a t-shirt with a naughty slogan: "Save a Quidditch player; ride a Professor."**_


	2. Vicious Cycle

**1. Vicious Cycle**

**_December, 1995_**

"Oh!"

At Hestia Jones' cry from behind, Tonks stopped suddenly in her tracks and span so quickly that the contents of her rucksack shifted, throwing her off-balance on the uneven dirt path. She grimaced as one foot slipped into the tread mark left by a Muggle car and lightning pain shocked through her turned ankle.

_Bloody trainers!_ she thought, glaring down at her feet, encased in the bright green and yellow trainers she'd thought so flash when she'd seen them in Gladrags last week. _Why didn't you wear proper shoes for a hike through the snow, you idiot?_

_Because you didn't know you'd be hiking. You thought you'd just Apparate straight to Remus' house. You weren't counting on anti-Apparition wards popping you to Brockenhurst instead, and having to do to some pretty sneaky memory charms on those Muggle villagers you scared the living daylights out of--_

"Hestia," she interrupted herself, noticing that the pink-cheeked witch was even pinker-cheeked than usual as she stood stock still in the road, staring into the trees, "what are you ohing about?"

"Ponies!" Hestia cried, pointing through the foliage. "Molly, look! Did you ever see such _darling_ little creatures!"

_Ponies._

Hestia had _got_ to be joking.

Not that people tended to joke about ponies.

Especially not in places that were famous for their ponies. A fact confirmed by Molly Weasley who, though huffing and puffing up the slight incline with a picnic hamper containing the full contents of the Burrow's larder, somehow caught the breath to _oh_ and _ah_ in duet with Hestia.

"I've always thought New Forest Ponies were the most adorable creatures on earth!" she said. "When I was a girl we took a cottage here one summer, and I made friends with them all." She sighed. "I begged my father to take them home with us, but of course they were wild creatures, and Mother wanted to hex them to oblivion for eating the vegetable patch. Peskier than garden gnomes, New Forest ponies. Though positively precious, to be sure."

Tonks had been listening to Molly's rambling story in a sort of stupor of disbelief, when suddenly -- at the grating sound of Hestia's giggle, to be precise -- she snapped into consciousness.

Hoisting up the straps of her rucksack, Tonks strode back downhill to her colleagues. "All this time I'd been under the impression that we were hiking through the wood because Remus was in trouble. It's nice to find out we're on a New Forest pleasure tour instead."

The crisp December air suddenly seemed stifling as Hestia giggled through her teeth, revealed by lips parted in a wide smile of embarrassment and astonishment; her rapidly blinking eyes darted from Tonks to Molly, whose face had gone quite as red as her hair.

_Crap._

_Molly already doesn't like you because of your weird hair and tomboy clothes and your incurable clumsiness and foot-in-mouth disease. After that smart-arse remark, she'll sure as hell _hate_ you._

_So much for hoping she might think a little better of you today for looking after Remus. So much for hoping she'd cut you a little slack because _he_ thinks well of you._

_In fact, it's a good job she doesn't know _how_ well Remus thinks of you. He's as good as a son to her, and you've noticed how every time Bill or Charlie talk to you, she wrings her apron in her hands and starts talking very loudly about girls they knew at Hogwarts who she saw at the shops the other day and found out they were still single. If she knew Remus was more than friends with rude, crude, socially unacceptable you, you'd have to watch Molly try and fix him up with Emmeline and Hestia and any other remotely suitable lady she could think of._

_Hell, she'd probably pair him with Professor McGonagall before she'd pair him with you._

Despite her face flushing, Molly looked at Tonks with rich eyes and said, tremulously, "Now, dear, I'm sure Remus is just fine."

She'd stepped forward and reached for her arm, but Tonks reflexively flinched away (_sod getting into Molly's good graces_) as something akin to magma bubbled in the pit of her stomach, then erupted in a flare of temper.

"Do you have _any_ idea what the Oak Moon means?"

Molly's mouth fell open as she stared at Tonks.

Tonks' temple throbbed as she gritted her teeth.

Out the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Hestia, biting her nails and looking at Molly as if life depended on her knowing the answer to Tonks' question.

The colour drained slowly from Molly's plump cheeks as she wagged her head. Oddly, the pallor gave the illusion of gauntness. Or was it the fact that Molly's brown eyes had darkened and grown big as saucers?

Whatever it was, it made Tonks' anger cool instantly, seeping out of her in a sigh that formed a cloud in the air.

_Now you've done it. They're effing frightened, and it's all because of you. You became an Auror because you wanted to stop people looking that way. What are you doing, then, putting that look on their faces?_

_Of course_ Molly and Hestia didn't have any bloody idea what the Oak Moon meant. Not many people were versed in werewolf lore, and she was sure Remus preferred his colleagues in the Order of the Phoenix stay that way.

_Hell, you're pretty sure he'd prefer _you_ weren't versed in werewolf lore._

Tonks sighed again, along with the whistling wind that whipped through the bare trees and kicking up dead leaves from the frosty ground, rustling them against the flapping hems of the women's cloaks and the tasselled ends of their scarves.

"Just a difficult moon," she said, hating to trivialise it that way, even though that had been Remus' exact description to her. "You're right, Molly -- and I'm sorry. Remus'll be fine."

She squeezed Molly's maroon-mittened hand and, thank Merlin for small favours, Molly actually gave her a small smile. An understanding -- as much as she could understand, anyway -- smile.

In fact, Molly was looking at Tonks much more closely than she'd ever done before. Her eyes criss-crossed at the corners as she looked...and looked...Tonks felt as if the older witch was probing her, _reading_ her. Not like a Legilimens; like a _mother_ -- which, at least from her experience with her own mum, Tonks thought was probably quite a lot more powerful.

Apparently it was in the case of Molly, too. After a moment, her blonde-red eyebrows arched in realisation.

Tonks' heart, which had been thudding heavily, raced. _What's she just figured out about you?_

But Tonks was distracted from the question by Hestia's giggle.

"Why, of course Remus'll be fine! That's why we're here, isn't it? To see to it that he will be fine, even if he's not at the moment?"

Tonks felt her blood begin to boil again as Hestia chattered and giggled. Every inch of her burned to react, and she didn't know how long she'd be able to hold back the hot words, but she restrained herself, for the sake of maintaining whatever new level of understanding, even respect, she'd achieved in Molly's eyes, as long as possible. Even if it was only a minute.

Miraculously, Molly actually _rolled her eyes_ at Hestia.

Tonks took it as permission to turn around and lead on. She set a quicker pace than she had yet, knowing, somehow, that Molly harboured no resentment for leaving her in the dust as she struggled with her picnic hamper.

As she walked, the thoughts about the Oak Moon which she'd left unspoken to Molly and Hestia tumbled pell-mell through her head.

Difficult didn't go far enough to describe what Remus experienced during his December transformation. Of course that had been how he phrased it to her the first December they were together when she noticed he was ill for longer leading up to and following that month's transformation, and asked him about it.

Just a slightly more difficult moon than normal, he'd said with a shrug and a smile that said it was no big deal, but thanks to Wolfsbane Potion, he'd feel none the worse if he were to prowl all night in a dank dungeon on the hunt for Red Caps, and then play a game of Quidditch the next day.

At that point she'd been thoroughly distracted from worry by the image of Remus zooming around on a broomstick, throwing Quaffles which was, perhaps, more unbelievable than him turning into a bloodthirsty monster one night each month.

Not to mention bloody hilarious.

_Don't forget you were also a wee bit distracted December of '93 because Remus invited you to spend Christmas at his house in the New Forest. You were worse than ever in Stealth and Tracking because Darling Des said he was taking you away for a dirty weekend, and you were wetting yourself wondering how the hell to break it to him you were a virgin._

"Ouch!"

Hestia's sharp cry interrupted Tonks' train of thought, but she continued walking, heedless, until Hestia called out to her to stop. The note of desperation in her voice made Tonks turn. Hestia was leaning against Molly, rubbing her ankle.

"You okay?" Tonks asked.

Hestia looked up, rather crossly. "Would you _please_ slow down? It won't help Remus if we all cripple ourselves falling into potholes covered up by snow! Especially the Healer!"

"Go on ahead," said Molly, hoisting Hestia's arm over her shoulder so she could support her. "We'll catch up."

Tonks didn't hesitate to hitch up her rucksack and do just that, though niggling guilt refused to allow her legs to move at the pace she'd kept previously.

_Typical, you self-centred prat. Just like last year, when you were too wrapped up in becoming a full-fledged Auror, and obsessing over Remus' secrets, to notice that losing his Hogwarts job meant he didn't have Professor Snape brewing his Wolfsbane Potion._

A year and a half later, her face still burned with mortification that six months had passed before it had registered. Remus had assured her it was okay, he hadn't drawn attention to it precisely because he knew she'd enough on her mind without fretting over things that didn't matter.

But they _did_ matter. At the very least, she ought to have _noticed_. She was his girlfriend, for Merlin's sake.

_Did you need it spelled out in four-foot high letters, flashing in neon lights? You couldn't have asked for a bigger clue than the change in your sex life._

Actually, she wasn't so sure. When she thought about it, she supposed there always had been a pattern of not being physical, or seeing him at all, very close to full moon. Then again, why should she have attributed it to the lunar cycle? Remus had been very busy with his teaching duties and extra tutoring sessions with Harry. It had seemed natural that he'd be too tired, or too busy to see her; Merlin knew her training schedule had been the one to keep them apart at least as often as his, especially as Auror qualifications loomed closer. Remus spoke so seldom about transformations, or his potion, that Tonks, convinced he was managing, all but put it out of her mind.

Since the termination of Remus' employment at Hogwarts, they'd had a thousand factors working against them, not least of which included the guilt trip Remus seemed unlikely ever to return from, over his lie of omission to Dumbledore and Sirius having to go on the run. Mixed with Tonks pretending to have fallen out and broken up with him so they could keep their relationship secret, they were practically _begging_ for stress, exhaustion, and all not to be fair in love-making and war.

That line of thinking had carried her to the previous December, when the memory of Oak Moon being a difficult moon, but Wolfsbane Potion helped, slammed into her with the force of the Hogwarts Express. She'd reacted impulsively -- and regrettably.

Not only had she made great thing of the fact that Remus had gone six months without Wolfsbane Potion, throwing in his face the whole sodding chain of events he'd already been flagellating himself over since June, but she'd also rubbed his nose in it that in the meanwhile _she_ had acquired one of the most prestigious careers in the Wizarding world by offering to hire him a potion-brewer. Of course Remus had been the epitome of cordial when he turned her down, offering his standard assurance that he'd be fine. But fine wasn't good enough for her, not when she could do something to make him better than fine, and she'd pushed the issue till it had erupted into a proper row which, if she were to be totally honest, she was surprised hadn't brought about a _real_ break-up and an end to all their secrecy.

She'd thought it had been over when, in the midst of the fight, a mission for Dumbledore took Remus away for the entire fortnight leading up to the Oak Moon, so that Tonks saw neither the worst of the pre-transformation effects, or the aftermath. Yet instead of the stony silence of a lovers' quarrel interrupted, every day of Remus' absence brought owls bearing newsy letters of his travels, all light and wry and amusing and sounding like they came from Remus in the pink of health. When he'd returned to her in time for their second Christmas holiday to the New Forest, she'd looked for signs that the moon had been more difficult for him without Wolfsbane Potion than it had been the previous year with it. Enough time had passed that he had fully recovered to his usual, if a bit thinner, self. Nor did she ask him how his transformation had been.

_And that just goes to show why you weren't sorted into Gryffindor. You're a bloody coward, through and through, too afraid of pissing off a bloke and risking him breaking up with you, to probe him about something you know he's not being up front with you about. Wasn't that why you broke up with him? Cos you wouldn't settle for less than honesty? You're a damned hypocrite, as well as a coward._

At least her inaction hadn't kept her permanently in the dark. Her Ravenclaw dad would have been right proud of how she turned to books to get the information she couldn't bring herself to ask from Remus. For the next year, she'd read every werewolf-related book, journal article, and pamphlet she could get her hands on. A lot of it had been horrifying; a lot of it had been rubbish, she learnt later, after a very strange tea she'd managed to arrange with Newt Scamander. Of course the things that had horrified her hadn't really been the rubbish bits -- like pre-transformation skyrocketing lycanthrope libido, which she knew from personal experience was hogswallop. Now that she was looking for it, she recognised a direct correlation between the approach of full moon and the effectiveness of her lingerie.

But then afterwards he was himself again, sweet and affectionate, and looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, and was delighted by her.

She didn't think Remus had any idea how much she took from those first moments of seeing him after another moonset, or how much that look meant to her. No matter how helpless she'd felt watching the waxing moon chip away at the thin veneer of his health and stamina, no matter how like a failure she'd felt at not being able to stop it, or even to ease it, that look confirmed his love; as the moon waned, their relationship could grow anew.

It was the anticipation of that look which quickened her steps now, even as she slipped on icy patches in the trail and twice narrowly avoided crashing onto her backside, and Hestia called, giggling, that she wasn't sure why Tonks had bothered to bring a Healer along, when she didn't seem to care if that Healer made it to the patient in one piece. For one horrifying bit she'd read in werewolf lore, which she'd found in the anonymous autobiography, _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_, which Newt Scamander had recommended particularly, and lent Tonks his own copy as Umbridge had banned it, had been confirmed one-hundred percent true.

Not only was the Oak Moon longest full moon of the year (read: the lengthiest amount of time Remus spent trapped in the form of a werewolf) but enacted in his body was the violent struggle of the Oak King of winter over the Holly King of summer at the coming of Solstice. Then more than ever, the werewolf thirsted for human prey. If free, he _would_ get it; if confined, sensing the shreds of humanity lingering in his mind and spirit, he would turn on himself.

So, she understood why Remus refused to transform in his room at Grimmauld Place, as he usually did. She understood that he didn't want to risk the safety of their colleagues who might not be able to stay away from Headquarters if an emergency were to arise. She understood that even if he were restrained, the werewolf, sensing human prey, could have a surge of strength and break free, even against magical bonds. She understood that even Sirius, in his Animagus form, could be at risk at this time of heightened sense and need.

She did not understand why Remus would place himself at risk, rather than ask her, just this once, to find him the Potion.

_Cos you're not enough for him, Tonks. You're too young, too naive, too inept--_

An icy patch swept her feet out from under her, and she skidded on the heels of her rubber-soled trainers, flailing her arms wildly for balance, till she hit a tree root which pitched her headlong straight at a tree off the path.

_Inept, see? This is why he doesn't trust you with the werewolf thing. Cos you can't even bloody walk through the wood to his house without doing something stupid--_

Hands brushing the branches of a sprawling holly, she closed her fingers around them to stop herself careening into the tree, gritting her teeth against the prick of the spiny leaves penetrating her gloves.

Yes, she was utterly wrong for Remus -- but he loved her anyway. She didn't know why; truthfully, she'd always been rather in the dark about that.  
The timing of when he'd first told her, said the actual words _I love you_ hadn't been the first time they'd slept together, or after that, on Valentine's Day, or his birthday or on a romantic date or any other time people tended to say those words for the first time. They hadn't even been together at all. And it had followed so many words from her that she was pretty sure _never_ preceded _I love you_.

_Hell -- it's a miracle he went out with you at all, seeing as in the first twenty-four hours of knowing him you accused him of running the black market Dark Creature trade! Then you had to go and dump him the day he resigned from Hogwarts. He'd been honest with you, truly honest, for the first time ever. He'd wanted forgiveness and loyalty....and comfort. And you threw all of it back in his face!_

She didn't think she'd ever stop blushing with shame whenever she thought back to that day, which remained as clear in her memory as if only eighteen seconds had passed instead of eighteen months...

_"It wasn't as bad as you're making it out to be," said Kingsley Shacklebolt as Tonks pushed her way out of the lift before the doors had fully opened._

_"Don't lie just to make me feel better." The staccato tap of Tonks' heels as she stepped off of the carpeted area where the lifts were onto the hardwood floor in the Ministry Atrium underscored her clipped syllables. "I don't want to hear it."_

_"Watch it." Kingsley's booming baritone was closer now, as his longer strides quickly caught him up to her. "You may not think you'll qualify for Auror, but until your marks are posted, I'm still your superior, and that means you don't get to choose what you hear from me. And I'm not--Look out!"_

_His large hand wrapped firmly around her elbow, but he was too late to stop her colliding with a person who had been obscured from view by the Centaur statue in the Fountain of Magical Brethren._

_"Bugger!" Tonks hissed, as Kingsley tugged her back and kept her steady on her feet. "Sorry, I--"_

_The apology died on her tongue when she looked up to see who she'd run into._

_Remus._

_Remus, who that very morning had come to her flat and told her that Sirius was an Animagus, and he'd known all along, and kept it from her._

_Remus, who by keeping something like that from her, had betrayed her trust._

_Remus, who for betraying her trust, she'd broken up with._

_Remus, who she'd broken up with, which had distracted her so completely that she was sure she'd failed Stealth and Tracking._

_Remus, here now, in his shabby old robes, clutching his battered old briefcase with the peeling monogram._

_She ought to have turned and walked away, without a word, as Kingsley tried to get her to do. But her feet felt as though they'd been hit with a Sticking Charm to root her to the highly polished floor. Remus was the very last person on earth she wanted to see right now. Not only that, but he had the balls to turn up here, looking bloody awful, and shake hands -- albeit warily -- with Kingsley._

_"What the hell are _you_ doing here?" she demanded. "I thought you were taking the train to Brockenhurst."_

_His eyes fixed somewhere just to the side of her face, and his lips twitched into that damned polite smile he always kept at the ready, like a pocket handkerchief._

_"I took a slight detour," he said, "in the hope that if I demonstrate contrition and compliance by enrolling with the Werewolf Registry, I might be able to prevent widespread fall-out for my actions." The lines of his face deepened with obvious effort to maintain the mild manner he wanted to show the world. "However, it seems a vain hope, in light of the whisperings that legislation is already being drawn up for monitoring of my kind."_

_Even in her fury at him, Tonks couldn't deny the guilt, the deep sadness, she heard in Remus' rasping tones. Her heart went out to him--_

_--but she reined it in._

_It was horrible for Remus, she knew, and to tell or not to tell must have been a huge dilemma. But it didn't have to be this way. If only he'd bloody _told her_, she would have done everything she could to protect him even as the truth came to light. He'd be tucked up in his great four-poster bed at Hogwarts, having his usual post-transformation lie-in, still gainfully employed, rather than jobless and subjecting himself to the humiliation of registering with the Ministry. And, though she wondered that she could accept it as the truth so easily after Remus had lied to her by omission for the better part of a year, she believed Black really was innocent and felt sure that if she'd been privy to the truth sooner, she could have done something to prevent him going on the run, and seen him exonerated of the murder charges. Remus wouldn't be carrying that guilt now. At least, if they'd tried and failed, he wouldn't be carrying it alone._

_In the heat of the moment she'd told him that the truth would have made her break up with him, but would she really have done? All those months ago, when it was early days, she was so chuffed that someone like him would fancy someone like her. In her heart of hearts, she knew she couldn't confidently say she'd have had the guts to break up with him, to put the career she'd dreamed of before a life she wasn't sure she wanted._

_Stupid. She'd been so. bloody. stupid._

_It made her furious._

_"Yeah, well," she spat, "that's what happens when you circumvent the law, isn't it?"_

_"Come on, Tonks," said Kingsley, pulling gently on her arm again. "Let's go."_

_Jerking free of his grasp, she lit into Remus. "D'you know what other whisperings there are?"_

_Remus' eyes flicked to her, meeting her gaze for the first time since they'd run into each other. They were rounded, and allowed Tonks to read him more clearly than she'd ever managed before now. Fatigue, and the situation, had caused him to let his guard down. He was afraid of what she had to say. It seemed impossible; she hadn't thought Remus was afraid of anything. But he was._

_"There's to be an inquiry," Tonks said, "into whether I knew my boyfriend was an unregistered werewolf and endangering the lives of the schoolchildren, and if I did, whether I ought to be suspended. Not that I'm going to qualify anyway," she added sharply, "seeing as I just cocked up my Stealth practical."_

_"For the millionth time," said Kingsley, "you _passed_."_

_"Barely," she said, eyes on Remus. "No thanks to _you_."_

_Remus swallowed hard, and Tonks watched his Adam's apple bob in his slender white throat, and press against his collar. "I'm so sorry."_

_"Yeah," Tonks said, turning on her heel. "Me, too."_

_As she walked toward the furthest gilded fireplace in the Atrium, she heard Kingsley tell Remus goodbye and good luck before calling to her. "Oi! Tonks! Where are you Flooing to?"_

_Tonks stopped in her tracks. She didn't have a bloody clue where she was Flooing to. Not home. She couldn't take Des right now. She tried not to think about the quiet evening Remus had promised her, of dinner in his room at Hogwarts followed by a massage and a bath..._

_She turned around as Kingsley strode up behind her. His tall, broad frame blocked out the fountain and any parting view of Remus._

_"You need a drink," he said, taking a pinch of Floo powder off the intricately carved mantel. "Come to the Leaky with me."_

_"Is that an order?" Tonks asked._

_"Yes." Kingsley laid a hand on her shoulder and tossed the powder into the Fireplace. "Diagon Alley!"_

_A few minutes later, she found herself nursing a Firewhisky in a shadowy corner booth in the mouldy tavern._

_"How was I s'posed to concentrate?" She sounded pitiful, but didn't have the energy to care. "All day, everyone was saying, 'Poor Tonks. Stupid girl didn't know she was sleeping with a werewolf.'"_

_"They weren't saying that," Kingsley chided._

_"They were thinking it."_

_"That's the spirit. Be that confident on your Legilimency exam, and you'll pass with flying colours."_

_In spite of her determination to wallow in misery, Tonks felt the corners of her mouth curve upward against her bottle._

_"Finally," said Kingsley. "A smile."_

_Tonks promptly frowned. "I hate pity."_

_Sighing, Kingsley rested his elbows heavily on the crude table and ran a hand over his shiny bald head. "For what it's worth, the only thing I feel sorry for you about is that Remus didn't live up to your trust. I mean, what's it matter if he's a werewolf? That's one day out of every twenty-seven, right? Rest of the time he's the sort of chap you'd feel good about taking home to meet your parents."_

_Tonks wished she _had_ taken him home at some point, so her parents could have seen for themselves how wonderful he'd been to her, instead of only knowing of him as the former Defence professor now embroiled in one of the worst scandals since the war ended. She didn't even want to think about the owls that must be waiting for her at the flat. At least her parents had had the sense to leave her alone before her test._

_"That's the thing, Kingsley," she said, even though it wasn't the thing. Werewolf thing or Black thing, the principle was the same. "I don't care about him being a werewolf. I....could've fallen in love with him anyway, if he'd just let me in. What?"_

_Kingsley was looking at her like she'd gone mad. Then he snorted into his beer._

_"Tonks, Tonks, Tonks..._Please_ tell me you're not living under the delusion that you weren't -- aren't -- head-over-two-left-feet in love with him."_

_"I--"_

_"You fell in love with Remus, whether you intended to or not, even though he held out on you. And you didn't fall _out_ of love with him the minute you broke up with him."_

_"I--"_

_"How else do you think hearts get broken?"_

_Kingsley watched her with his warm brown eyes, and Tonks wondered if he was reading her, because that was exactly how she felt inside: broken. God, she wanted to cry._

_But she sucked it up. "What are you going to say next? That if we're meant to be, Remus'll prove he's worth it and make it up to me, and I'll find it in my heart to forgive him?"_

_"Pretty much the gist of it, yeah."_

Reliving that conversation as she stood in the New Forest on a freezing December morning, face burning as she thought of how awful she'd been, Tonks still managed to smile. Avoiding the icy patch that had sent her off the road, glancing over her shoulder to see that Molly and Hestia were catching up to her (Molly actually thanked her for waiting), Tonks resumed her hike with a new energy as the shadows of the past drifting to the front of her memory became a bit less...shadowy.

Much as she'd insisted to Kingsley and herself that it would be far more vindicating -- especially to her Stealth marks -- to stay pissed off at Remus, she found herself wondering, right there in the Leaky Cauldron, what Remus could do to make her forgive him. In fact, if she'd been honest with herself, she'd already begun to forgive him even without him doing a damn thing. Thanks to Kingsley, who didn't even know the real thing she was upset at Remus for was holding back.

_"Don't hate me for saying this," said Kingsley a few days later, when the end of Auror qualification exams brought them once more to the pub, "but I sort of get why Remus didn't register as a werewolf."_

_"Do you?" Tonks knew exactly why, as Remus had told her when she'd mentioned having checked the Registry one day and coming up with nothing, but she wanted to hear what an unbiased outsider had to say._

_"Had to be a secret for him to get to go to school at all, hadn't it?"_

_"I suppose..."_

_"Well, then, after seven years of anonymity, and no incident, why would Remus suddenly go public? Scandal aside, it must be right impossible to get a job when you've got Werewolf stamped on your records. And it's not like Werewof Support Services actually provides services."_

_Tonks wondered if Remus had begun looking for work yet, or if he was lying low and reading the Prophet with increasing hopelessness. The new anti-werewolf bills Dolores Umbridge was trying to persuade Minister Fudge to sign were getting almost as many inches in the paper these days as the unfolding story of Black's escape . Mandatory registration had already been passed, and the Werewolf Capture Unit were undergoing additional training to prepare for tracking and arresting those who didn't comply. Half the letters to the editor this week were from witches and wizards who supported the tightening of security, and more than a few employers sought legal protection to sack werewolf workers._

_No, if that was what Remus had anticipated as a young man, she couldn't blame him for not registering, or his parents for hiding the truth when he was a child._

_Yet even though he hadn't been registered, Remus hadn't seemed to have had much long-term work before his stint at Hogwarts. Why? Had it been difficult for him to keep a job because of the relentless cycle of the moon? Had his bosses noticed the pattern of his illness? How ill _was_ he? Knowing how tired and sickly he became every month whilst he was taking the Wolfsbane Potion, Tonks could only imagine it was worse without._

_Of course, Remus had never spoken of any of these things._

_Which was the whole damn problem. Even if she hadn't broken up with him because of the werewolf thing._

_"Why are you pushing this?" she asked, frustrated that Kingsley was striking an emotional chord with her that distracted from the actual issue. "Do you want me to get back together with him, or something?"_

_Kingsley took a drink. "Yeah. I do."_

_She should have let it drop, but in spite of herself, she couldn't help but ask why._

_"No offence, Tonks," said Kingsley, "I love you when you're snarky and feisty and independent and fuelled by righteous fury..."_

_"But?"_

_"But ever since you broke it off with Remus, you've been a bit of a loose cannon. You've got crap marks on your exams--"_

_"I've been a tad distracted!"_

_"Actually," drawled Kingsley, "I think it's that you overcompensated." He paused, met her stare levelly, and leant back in the booth, stretching one arm across the seat, and sipped his beer casually. "Remember last autumn, before you got a boyfriend, and you were your own worst enemy because you worked too hard and made yourself nervous?"_

_Feeling a bit like she'd taken a Stunner to the chest, Tonks nodded weakly. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? "You think I did better in training because I was getting laid?"_

_"Because you were getting laid by Remus, yeah," Kingsley replied. "I mean this in the best possible way, Tonks, but you grew up a lot this year. You and Remus fit really well together. He brought out the best in you. It was like you'd found your purpose as a human being, not just as an Auror cadet."_

_Tonks picked at the handle of her mug. "I wanted to be his equal. I thought if I could get to his level he'd..." She swallowed a painful lump in her throat. "...love me."_

_Her voice came out small and pinched and pathetic. She quickly swigged her beer and added, bitterly, "Obviously that wasn't enough for him, or he'd have told me his secrets. Bastard."_

_"What if he was protecting you?" Kingsley asked._

_"Protecting me?"_

_"When we ran into him in the Atrium and you told him about the inquiry, I read him like a book. He was afraid of something like that happening. But if you didn't know about him, you'd be off the hook for sitting on information."_

_It made sense._

_A _lot_ of sense._

_After the initial days of knowing each other, when they'd found one another irresistible, he'd backed off inexplicably. Later, after she'd stumbled onto the truth during a bit of very ill-advised detective work, he'd confessed to her that, given the gap in their ages, his conscience refused to allow him to go out with her without her knowing what he was. But he hadn't wanted to tell her, either, when, for all his attraction to her, he barely knew her. Rather a slap in the face, to be sure -- but at least it had been an honest slap in the face. He'd made it up to her with a series of the loveliest dates she'd ever been on, treating her like a queen, and in that context, his preoccupation with doing right by her became charming, endearing. She'd thought that men who cared more about a woman than about themselves only existed in fairy tales. It was difficult to feel insulted by protectiveness when a bloke made you feel special, or even...cherished._

_When applied to the Black situation, protection made even more sense, and oh God! In that light, it became perfectly obvious that Remus hadn't thought for a second that she would betray his trust. She'd been mad to suggest it. He wouldn't have tried to protect her otherwise. He knew. He knew she would honour his confidence, and so he kept silent, to protect her from being incriminated, from being denied Auror qualification, from being packed off to Azkaban..._

_The constricted feeling that had clutched at Tonks' heart for days loosened--_

_--but some rebellious part of her still resisted._

_"Isn't up to me whether I risk my job? Protection's gallant, but it's not right."_

_"No," said Kingsley, surprisingly. "But it's noble. Damned hard to find noble people."_

_That was the truth, Tonks thought. "I'm not one of them."_

However much she'd grown up during her third year of Auror training, Tonks was no more noble now, as a Junior Auror, than she had been then -- as Hestia's breathless pleas from further and further behind on the path made perfectly plain. Tonks slowed her pace, and pulled up her sleeve to check her watch. As she did, her silver charm bracelet caught her eye, and she smiled.

No, she wasn't noble -- but Remus, who definitely was, didn't care. As had been evident the night he gave her the bracelet...

_"Sure you don't want me to walk you home?" Kingsley asked when he saw Tonks down to the lobby of his flat when she left the party he'd thrown the new Junior Aurors after their graduation ceremony._

_"Haven't we established this week that I've gone off of gallant men?" Tonks teased. "Anyway, you've got a lot of new Aurors up in your flat who are two sheets to the wind, and if you go to mine, Des, constantly vigilant in her quest to hook up with Auror Shacklebolt, will pounce, and you'll never get away from her in time to save your lovely white sofa from total destruction--"_

_"As if you didn't already dye it red with your wine," he muttered, looking over his shoulder to the lift, high forehead etched with concern._

_"So I'll just walk myself home, ta." Tonks turned back in the doorway to thank him for everything that week, all his support about the break-up, then stepped out into the night and sighed with relief._

_It had been hard -- so very hard -- to be at one of Kingsley's parties, single after months of attending on Remus' arm, and feeling like the belle of the ball when she saw how well-liked he was, even among strangers. Oddly she'd felt his absence most keenly on the several occasions during the course of the night that people had asked her about him, and why she hadn't teamed up with Umbridge to champion the new legislation, when she herself had been treated so abominably by one of the nasty, lying creatures. Because that wasn't Remus. For all his faults, he was a million times the human half the people she knew were._

_So she'd left early, missing him, and wishing she could see him._

_Lucky stars must have shone that night. When she rounded the corner of her building, he was there._

_He stood in the shadows, magical blue flame cupped in one hand as she'd first seen him at the gates of Hogwarts last September. In the other hand, he clutched a bouquet._

_"Hyacinths," he said, quietly, holding it out to her._

_She drank in the fragrant purple blossoms. "For congratulations?"_

_Remus shook his head. "For an apology. And I hope -- forgiveness. This..." He reached into his pocket and drew out a flat velvet box._

_A jewellery case._

_"This is for congratulations."_

_She could manage no more than his whispered name as he placed it in her hand._

_He tapped his wand to it, and it opened to reveal a silver bracelet, gleaming brilliantly in the flickering blue light of the flame. From it dangled three delicate charms which, after the initial dream-like haze of seeing him, of being given flowers and jewellery after she'd so cruelly dumped him, she recognised as runes. At the centre was Jera, the rune of success, with a red gemstone set in one corner -- cornelian, she remembered from her Ancient Runes textbook; on one side dangled Wunjo, the rune of joy, which contained a diamond (dear Merlin, he must have spent a fortune...and him, without a job); and there was yet another, an opal-encrusted Gebo, the rune of forgiveness and--_

_Her heart was in her throat._

_"It's for love, as well," said Remus._

_She looked up._

_For love._

_Had he said...? Did he mean...?_

_Oh Merlin, it was in his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, and was stepping closer to her, so close that his words were a warm breath on her face._

_"I love you," he said. "I have for a long time. I should have told you sooner, but I thought...I saved it because...I thought tonight would be special."_

_"As if that alone wouldn't make any night special?" Tonks asked, then cursed herself for it._

_But Remus laughed, quietly, and put his hand on her waist, and dipped his head. He looked boyishly up at her through his fringe. "I know. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before." He looked up again, and looked like a man, with greying hair and lines around his eyes and mouth. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you a lot of things before."_

_"You were protecting me," said Tonks, shaking her head. "And Dumbledore."_

_"And myself," he added. "I'm not noble...Elphine."_

_"You are," Tonks argued. "You were just wrong. And you're not the only one who was. I owe you hyacinths."_

_He smiled gently. "You don't owe me a thing, except..."_

She'd told him she loved him, too, of course.

Now, looking at her charm bracelet, reflecting the December morning grey against her black leather glove, she warmed at the memory of his brilliant smile as he carefully clasped it around her wrist. Several new rune charms had been added since then, his gifts for her birthday and Christmas and Valentine's Day, which she knew he could ill afford as time dragged on without a steady income, but which she cherished all the more because she knew how much it meant to him to give them to her.

If only he knew how much she wanted to give to him in return.

Their reconciliation had been sweet, but not without the bitter. The Ministry had let her off the inquiry hook because Kingsley had argued on her behalf that her reaction to Remus being outed was too genuinely shocked and angry for her to have known he was a werewolf. If she were to keep a low profile, they would have to be together in secret. Which she hated, because the very last thing she wanted after everything was for him to think she was ashamed of sleeping with a werewolf, as everyone assumed she must be. But Remus, of course, had been perfectly agreeable about it. It was safer, he said, and he couldn't ask for anything more than her safety and her love.

_Doesn't he, though?_ Tonks asked herself as the familiar sight of his chimney of crumbling stone appeared through a gap in the trees. _Doesn't he need someone to keep _him_ safe? Especially when the Oak moon waxes full?_

_But apparently that someone's not you, or he'd let you in. He's holding back again, Tonks. It's the werewolf thing keeping him from you again._

She brushed the thoughts of self-doubt aside and fixated on the ones about Remus. At the thought of the wolf, so needy for human flesh, tearing at his own body -- _Remus' body_ -- she quickened her pace on the snowy path. As she raced through the forest, eyes fixed on the chimney that meant Remus was so near, she could only hope that Molly was right, that he was fine, tucked up in bed, and simply sleeping too soundly to have sent for her.

_You'll see, Tonks. When he opens his eyes, he'll look at you, and you'll see you really are all he needs._

_At least...you hope you will._

If she didn't, she hadn't a bloody clue what she would do.

* * *

_**A/N: The Oak Moon is actually the name of the December full moon, but I've taken imaginative license tying it in with the legend of King Holly and King Oak, as well as with how it might affect Remus' transformations.**_

_**Thanks to all who are following this fic, and I appreciate the feedback y'all left for the prologue. This time, those who review will receive a bouquet of your favorite flowers and the jewelry item of your choice, from Remus, of course, though of course the gesture needn't be an apology. Unless, of course, you've had the quarrel just for the fun of making up... ;)**_


	3. Up from the Grave

**_A/N: I'm afraid there's a bit of confusion about the timeline of this story. Italicized portions of the text are flashbacks from early in Remus' and Tonks' relationship, which in this ficverse began during Prisoner of Azkaban, in Tonks' last year of Auror training. The non-italicized sections are the "real time" story, which is set just before Christmas in Order of the Phoenix. The first flashback in this story refers to a stand-alone fic called "You Should Know", which you can find through my profile. Hopefully that clears things up a bit!

* * *

  
_****_  
_****2. Up from the Grave**

_"Aha! I knew Dad kept an axe in here!"_

_At the sound of Remus' voice, Tonks, taking a turn about the frosty garden in back of his house glanced over her to see him emerging from the woodshed. She kept walking and looking all around the property as he shut the shed doors and locked them, and continued, "Good job we're only taking it Christmas tree hunting to keep up the appearance of doing it the Muggle way."_

_"Why's that?" Tonks threw back, stopping when, in her peripheral, she saw him break into a jog toward her. "D'you really think it's wise to jog with an axe in your hand?"_

_Remus raised his eyebrows, but slowed to a walk. "Probably not -- if I were you."_

_"Why, you--!"_

_She'd instinctively raised her hand to punch him playfully in the shoulder, heedless of the fact that it probably wasn't any wiser to punch people with axes in their hands if you wanted to keep them in one piece, only to have her words cut off by having the thing appear suddenly in her face._

_"Bit rusty," she said._

_"Not to mention dull." Remus ran his thumb along the blade, then held it up to show her that every thread of his gloves remained intact. "I think we'd be hard put to butter our bread with this."_

_"Lucky we've got bread knives and chopping charms, then."_

_"Indeed."_

_Lowering the axe to his side, Remus looked down at her with a smile and took her hand. "Those Auror eyes of yours aren't missing a detail of the house and grounds," he said. "Should I be frightened?"_

_Tonks shoved aside guilty thoughts that she hadn't yet managed to put Remus at ease that, small and ramshackle though it was, she loved the woodland cottage where he'd grown up. Instead, she focused on the fact that this time, he'd been far less disparaging of his humble means. Maybe, by making herself vulnerable and confessing to him that she'd never been on holiday with a man, or gone to bed with anyone (which they were sure to do this weekend, tonight even) she'd bridged the gap between them._

_Plus it was practically impossible to think of anything negative when he'd just called her an Auror, even though she wasn't yet. No one had ever had more faith in her that Remus seemed to._

_"You should be quaking in your boots," she said._

_"I'm sure I would be, if I were wearing boots."_

_Tonks rolled her eyes. "I've been imagining you here as a little boy, and I expect you to tell me where and what you played at."_

_Remus chuckled quietly, and Tonks guessed that even if it hadn't been cold his cheeks would still have been tinged with pink, that even if he hadn't been dodging decapitation by low tree branch, he still would have ducked his head so that his long light brown hair obscured his face._

_It was all she could do not to skip a little with glee. She managed to refrain, but couldn't hold back a giggle, which was mortifying enough. Though really, she'd just told him was a virgin. Surely nothing ought to embarrass her now?_

_"I knew it'd be something blush-worthy," she said._

_Lifting his head, Remus darted his eyes sidelong at her. "Actually, it was horror at the prospect of you meeting my childhood story with, 'Aw, ickle Wemy, such a cute darling thing.'"_

_"Oi!" Tonks pulled up short and dropped his hand. "I'd never, in a million years, call you 'ickle Wemy'!"_

_"Wouldn't you?" Remus asked, facing her with brows raised in amusement._

_With a snort, Tonks folded her arms across her chest. "You're pretty sure whatever it was you played at was cute and darling enough to merit it."_

_He grinned smugly. "As it so happens, I can only imagine my childhood games weren't terribly different from your own, except that beyond wearing false beards made from cotton wool, I couldn't make myself look like the people I was pretending to be."_

_"So now you're assuming _my_ childhood games involved morphing?"_

_"I know what they say about assumptions," said Remus, "but considering you impersonated your mum so you could go drinking on your first Hogsmeade weekend..."_

_Tonks' mouth fell open, but then she recovered her wits. "Morphing at thirteen to try Firewhisky isn't the same as..."_

_Didn't recover them for long, apparently. The sandy eyebrow arched high on Remus' forehead rose still further toward his fringe._

_"All right," she admitted, "so I occasionally played Professor McGonagall and tried to teach my stuffed animals Transfiguration."_

_Remus' laugh was a low rumble in his chest as he stepped toward her, reaching out to touch her fingers where they rested on her forearm. "Were you a good teacher?"_

_His blue eyes peered brightly through his silver and gold fringe._

_"Merlin, no!" Tonks uncrossed her arms to push Remus' hair out of his face. Tucking it behind his ear, she locked her hands around his neck as his free hand slipped inside her open coat and settled on her waist. "I was very impatient, and handed out detentions and docked heaps of House Points every other second because none of them could do a decent Appearance Charm."_

_"That's especially cruel," said Remus, wincing, but stroking her side through her bulky jumper, "since Appearance Charms are taught in Charms, not Transfiguration."_

_"I knew that, but I didn't want to morph into Professor Flitwick."_

_"Not as shocking to your mother to have her small daughter shrink to two feet tall instead of grow to almost six?"_

_"Exactly," said Tonks. "Damn hard to climb the ladder to my tree house, as well. And anyway I can't do male morphs. I mean, I reckon I _could_, it's just that I never wanted to..."_

_She felt her face go very red, and dropped her gaze._

_"I must say," said Remus, "I'm rather relieved to hear that. I mean..." _ His_ face coloured, too and his eyes darted away. "...not that I ever wondered if you had or could..."_

_"Anyway," said Tonks, stepping round him and scanning the yard again, "this is supposed to be about you, not me."_

_"I had a tree house, too," he said, and pointed to a giant oak tree with branches that yawned wide enough to hold a good-sized playhouse. Only there was nothing there._

_"Is it under Fidelius or something?" Tonks asked._

_Remus chuckled, and there was a nostalgic look in his eyes. "A storm took it in my seventh year. Dad and I planned to rebuild it that summer, but of course I joined the Order immediately after I left school, and Dad passed away that autumn..."_

_His voice trailed away into the winter silence. Though they were standing in the crisp, open air of the countryside, Tonks felt oppressed by the utter lack of knowing the proper thing to say._

_Luckily for her, Remus caught her hand and squeezed it. "You never saw a better tree house."_

_"I saw mine," she replied._

_"Was yours perfectly cylindrical and a reproduction of Professor Dumbledore's office, complete with crayon portraits of the previous headmasters and a papier-mâché Fawkes?"_

_Tonks jaw dropped, and she actually felt a prickle of envy as she wagged her head. "Mine had flowerboxes in the windows and a kitchen. Mum meant it to encourage me to be a proper housewitch. Have you got any of those portraits about, or were they all lost in the storm?"_

_"Miraculously," Remus answered, "a number of them were caught in those bushes."_

_She turned her head to follow the sweep of his hand across the yard. At the edge of the forest clearing in which the house was nestled, grew a clump of unkempt holly bushes laden with the brightest red berries she'd ever seen._

_His cold, but very soft, lips on her cheek diverted her attention from the shrubbery._

_"I made them one afternoon when Dumbledore popped in for tea," Remus went on, "and he--"_

_"Did he do that often?" Tonks interrupted, awe-struck at how casually he'd mentioned it, as if Albus Dumbledore popping in for tea was something every Wizarding family experienced._

_She was even more startled when Remus nodded and said, "All the time. Very close friend of my parents'."_

_It made sense, she reckoned, considering that Dumbledore had gone to such lengths to make it possible for Remus to be able to attend school. Had he helped Mr. and Mrs. Lupin keep Remus' condition a secret from the start?_

_"Anyway," Remus was saying, "Dumbledore charmed my drawings to speak, and the voices are remarkably like the actual portraits, as I was delighted to learn when I was at school -- despite the circumstances that took me to the Headmaster's office not being at all delightful. "Possibly I could be persuaded to hunt for my old art work after we find those elusive Christmas decorations."_

_"Oh you could, could you?" Tonks said, tilting her face up toward his as his arm tightened around her waist._

_"Mm-hm."_

_It was murmured against her mouth, and the next few minutes were spent in very sweet persuasion which she suspected included him convincing her to do a number of yet-to-be-named things, as well._

Anything_ he asked, she would do, if only he kept kissing her like this..._

_Almost abruptly, Remus pulled away._

_"Talking of which..." His hand slid from her waist to take her hand again, and he led her toward the forest. "...the day's short, and we'd best find a Christmas tree before dark sets in."_

_"Avoiding talking about your childhood any more?" Tonks asked. "Afraid you're pressing your luck on me calling you ickle Wemy? Cos I'm not letting you off the hook, not when you baited it with that little morsel about getting sent to the Headmaster's office."_

_"On the contrary," said Remus. "I was just about to point out to you that that grove of Scots Pines formed my base camp when I was Mr. Figg, photographing the magical fauna of India for Wizarding Geographic."_

_"Obviously you didn't read Wizarding Geographic well enough, or you'd know Scots Pines aren't part of India's flora, magical or otherwise."_

_"I'm not sure I knew they were called Scots Pines when I was six," said Remus, "and anyway, I seem to recall someone else taught her stuffed animals Appearance Charms in Transfiguration?"_

_Tonks started to glower up at him, but her gaze was drawn by the vivid holly bushes he'd shown her moments before. Closer to it now, she saw that between the two sprawling shrubs that clearly hadn't been pruned in years, a dome structure that appeared to be made of stone -- no, concrete -- rose up from the ground; a square of rusted metal -- with hinges, it was a door -- was bolted to the centre._

_Dropping Remus' hand, Tonks jogged toward it to have a better look. "This cellar thing must've been a great place to play."_

_Skidding on an icy patch when she pulled up short in front of it, she shot her hands out to break her fall, banging into the door._

_"Or pretend you were drummer for the Hobgoblins," she added, shaking the pain out of her hands._

_"That's not a cellar," said Remus, maintaining his ambling pace, one hand stuffed into his trouser pocket, as he approached her. "It's an air-raid shelter."_

_"Air-raid?" Tonks wasn't sure what the words meant, but something about them rang hollow and foreboding within her. She stepped away from the air-raid shelter, whatever it was._

_"Do you know about the Muggle World Wars?" Remus asked. "Have your grandparents ever mentioned the second one, in the 40s?"_

_Now she thought about it, she _had_ heard them refer to "the War" -- but she'd never paid much attention, because to her "the War" meant the one against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and she heard quite enough about that from wizards, thank you very much._

_"This house belonged to my Muggle grandparents," said Remus, "and during the war, people built shelters like this to protect them from German bombs."_

_"Those exploding things that knock down buildings?"_

_Nodding, Remus reached out to rest a hand on the dome. His fingers curved gently, almost reverently, over the concrete, and for no reason at all, Tonks imagined him standing beside a white marble tomb, saying a lingering goodbye to someone he loved very much._

_"An air-raid shelter's an unusual feature in this part of the country," he said, "but London was hit so hard that many people were terrified of the war spreading and prepared for the worst."_

_"Your grandparents never had to use it?" Tonks asked._

_"Not for air-raids, no. Much later it proved a blessing for the parents of a small, but no less deadly, werewolf."_

_"You..." A howling gale whipped up, and Tonks shivered. "You transformed in there...when you were a little boy?"_

_Remus nodded, once; then, smiling, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the forest. "Let's not spoil Christmas Eve talking about that, shall we?"_

_She had a million questions: Wasn't it dark down there? In winter, cold? Did it frighten you? How could your parents stand to lock you away? But having made up her mind to do anything he asked, she let them go._

And had continued to do so ever since.

Now, standing before the concrete and iron that contained Remus beneath the ground, she wished more than ever that she had not kept silent. The holly bushes, wild and overgrown on either side, seemed so out of place with their shiny, waxen leaves and festive red berries. More than that, in the context of full moons and transformations, the shrubs only reminded her of the Oak and Holly Kings' mythic bid for dominance -- a duel to the _death_. Her train of thought careened on where she didn't want it to go.

_When Remus went down there last night, it was like a man going to die. He knew the Dark Creature would take him, that between moonrise and moonset, no such person as Remus John Lupin would exist._

_And there was nothing he could do to stop it._

"Is he still...?" piped Molly's tremulous voice from behind, startling Tonks; she'd forgotten she wasn't alone. _Damn! _ That meant Hestia was somewhere very nearby, as well. Merlin help her, if that silly woman _giggled..._

"Are you sure he's not...?" Molly's question trailed off again, but even though incomplete, it made Tonks' heart quicken, and panic snatched her breath.

_Are you sure he's not...still gone?_ Oh dear Merlin. He hadn't contacted her, though he'd promised he would. What would have stopped him? Had the werewolf retreated, and Remus returned to her from whatever far reach of existence the human man had been banished to? Or could he yet be gone? Could he...?

Every terrifying word she'd ever read about werewolf transformation and the Oak Moon barraged her mind, in particular the bits about the werewolf turning on himself if he could find no human prey.

_Oh God..._How much harm could a werewolf inflict upon himself?

_You've no idea. No. bloody. idea. Cos he didn't trust you enough to tell you...Cos you didn't have the courage to make him tell you. He could be dead, and that shelter a tomb, all because you, you stupid coward, sat on your arse and did nothing..._

Her knees buckled...or the world tilted at an alarming angle on its axis...or both. She reached out for something to steady herself--

--and felt the thin veneer of iced-over concrete beneath her palms, frigid melt-off seeping into her gloves.

It brought her to her senses.

Or at least made her sense something other than abject terror.

_Something like total annoyance that Molly's inane babble had turned you into a nervous wreck that rivalled Mad-Eye Moody for the Paranoiac of the Year Award. Why do you always let yourself get carried away with other people's rubbish?_

"Still a wolf?" Tonks said with a sniff of incredulity. "Molly, moonset was _hours_ ago."

Molly's plump cheeks were very pink.

_Not because she just hiked miles from the village, either, you great prat._

"I just thought..." Molly's brown eyes darted everywhere but at Tonks, briefly making contact with Hestia -- who, predictably, giggled. "Before you go down, I wanted to be sure...he won't...he's not..."

"He's not dangerous," Tonks snapped -- but seeing Molly shudder visibly, her normally smooth, round features pinched and etched with fearful lines, aging her, Tonks' conscience chided her again. She exhaled breath and anger, then said, "Why don't you go on to the house and start breakfast? He'll be hungry."

"Yes, of course," said Molly, her shoulders confident and erect now, eyes alert and focused, as if the mere mention of kitchens and cooking had dispelled any thoughts of werewolves locked in underground shelters and placed her once more in her element.

And then that perceptive mother's gaze was sweeping Tonks as she fished in her cloak pocket for the large, old key to the cottage. Their fingers brushed as she handed it over, and Tonks was startled to feel something like comfort pass from Molly to her, and then her own heart gave a little lurch of...gratitude?...affection? When their eyes met, she read a look on the older witch's face that said she knew that was _her_ key, and not one Remus had given her just so she could look after him today. Molly turned and picked her way around flowerbeds half-buried in snow toward the house, and Tonks found herself battling an inexplicable urge to rush after her and throw her arms around her neck and burrow her face in that motherly shoulder.

God, it was just so _good_ to have one less person to lie to.

It was either the best-timed giggle or the worst.

"Well," Hestia said breezily, "how do we get in, then?"

Tonks' abdominal muscles tightened, and her teeth gritted together so hard she was really surprised they hadn't screeched. The simper on Hestia's face made her want to scream through her clenched teeth.

_Steady on, Tonks. Think how Remus always deals with Snape. Calm, collected, courteous. Somehow he still gets the joy of winding people up, too -- more than you, in fact, with your loose-cannon style of name-calling and swearing. So just stay cool. Hestia will never know what hit her. You can have your cauldron cakes and eat them too._

Forcing her jaw to un-clench, Tonks drew a deep breath, and reminded herself to smile in what she hoped was Remus' I'm-making-you-think-I'm-accomodating-an

d-compromising-but-really-I'm-getting-my-way-and-my-way-only smile. "I can get in and take him to the house myself," she said, "but if you could check upstairs to see the bedroom's in order, sheets on the bed, and all that, it'd be a big help. It's just up the stairs, end of the hall, and the linens are in the cupboard next to the bathroom."

_Hm. Not exactly Remus Smart-Arse Lupin there, but you did rather channel your mum for the first time ever._

Except that Hestia wouldn't have looked at Andromeda Tonks with a widening grin and narrowed eyes and said, "You know Remus' house pretty well, don't you? I suppose he brought you here when he was courting you?"

If anyone _had_ looked at Andromeda that way and said that, she wouldn't have got flustered thinking about how many times she'd been here, and everything they'd done; she especially wouldn't have got hung up on the first time he'd invited her, when for weeks beforehand she'd yo-yoed between being more excited than she'd ever been about anything in her life and dreading telling Remus, _I know you're taking me away for the weekend because you want to sleep with me, and I really want to sleep with you too, only it may not be everything you'd hoped since, by the way, I'm a virgin;_ and Andromeda sure as hell wouldn't have had the urge to tell Hestia about everything just because she was realising she was sick and tired of hiding her relationship with Remus like it was a shameful secret.

But even though she was right chuffed to be _courted_ by Remus and, apparently, her history the object of envy by someone who thought the days of courtship were over, she managed a monotone reply. "Couple times, yeah."

Hestia giggled. "You've a very good memory."

A pencilled eyebrow arched on Hestia's wide forehead, and suddenly Tonks found she didn't have to fabricate the negative feelings necessary for talking about a relationship that had come to a bad end.

"Necessary quality for an Auror," she replied.

A hiss as Hestia sucked in her pink cheeks.

_Score one for Tonks._

"Yes, well," said Hestia crisply, giving her head of bouncy honeyed curls a toss, "bed-making isn't exactly a necessary quality for a Healer, but _Healing_ is, hence the name..."

Her eyes flashed as they caught Tonks', and when another tittering laugh escaped the pursed red lips, Tonks wondered if Hestia wasn't a distant relation of Dolores Umbridge.

"_Yes, well_," Tonks mimicked, "werewolf handling's also a necessary quality for Aurors."

_That's a bald-faced lie, and you know it. All the Auror training you got on dealing with werewolves was to do your best to stun them before the Werewolf Capture Unit gets to the scene of the rampage. And Hestia looks like she knows it, too._

_But you could, though, Tonks. If put to the test, you could handle one. You could handle Remus._

"But you just told Molly Remus changed back," said Hestia, "so it's not technically a werewolf we're handling, is it? Just a man. Hee-hee! Man-handling. I like the sound of that. So I'll just go in with you!"

Looking horrifyingly like the giddy dorm-mates Tonks had always detested, Hestia hitched up her robes, showing off dainty boots with ice pick heels that made Tonks ask Merlin how the bloody hell Hestia hadn't turned her heel miles back and have to be left behind. As Hestia, smirking, made to step around her, Tonks caught her arm.

"No!"

Hestia looked witheringly at the hand crumpling the sleeve of her robe, and Tonks released her.

"What do you mean, no?" Hestia asked.

"You can't go in."

"I see. But mightn't Remus be injured?"

"Yes."

"And isn't that why you brought a Healer -- _me_ -- along with you?"

It never would have occurred to Tonks that Hestia the Hyena, as she'd taken to calling her behind her back, could pull off the sort of pointed look and tone that could deflate a person in a half-a-second flat.

"I didn't mean you couldn't go in at all," she heard herself say "Only let me go first and make sure it's okay."

_Oh well done, Tonks, way to assert the authority you worked so hard to achieve._

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Thank Merlin for small favours; Tonks' sudden onset of timidity abandoned her just as quickly as annoyance welled up again simultaneously with the onset of an epiphany.

"It's much simpler than that," she flung back firmly. "Remus won't want you don't there immediately because he'll be--"

The seizing up of her vocal chords undermined her authority yet _again_. How in Merlin's name was she supposed to make Hestia understand the gritty reality of what was going on right now, whilst at the same time preserving Remus' dignity? He was such an intensely private man; she imagined him standing beside her now, posture and mild smile stiffening as much at the _mention_ of this as if he were actually publicly exposed.

She had a sudden new appreciation for why he didn't talk about what he went through every month.

Apparently the stall was too much for Hestia. Her robes concealed her pretty boots once again as she dropped her skirts and stood with her arms akimbo. "_Of course_ Remus will want me there immediately! He doesn't want to stay in that miserable cellar any longer than he's been already, surely! He'll want me to check he's fit to be moved. And he must not be, or he'd have moved himself, or contacted you."

"HE'S PROBABLY STARKERS DOWN THERE!" Tonks blurted.

For just a second, Hestia looked startled, but then the simper returned, accompanied by the sound that made Tonks wish to Merlin she could abandon her upbringing and emulate Severus Snape and silence this infernal witch.

"Again," Hestia warbled, "need I remind you that I am a _Healer_, and seeing naked people's all part of a day's work?"

She had a point.

_No, Tonks, she hasn't got a point. That look on her face is positively a bleeding _leer_. Seeing Remus naked is all part of a day's work for a hussy who wants to get her hooks in him, _not_ a Healer!_

"Maybe so," said Tonks, crisply, "but you're still Remus' Order colleague, and even his subordinate, first and foremost. It can't come as a surprise to you that he doesn't want _every_ female member to be picturing him naked when he's standing up to speak at meetings, can it?"

Two spots of deep red coloured Hestia's cheeks, her pupils became hard, glittering gobstone-like dots -- like sodding Snape's -- and the corners of her mouth hitched upward as her lips parted to reveal a mouthful of teeth Tonks had never noticed before were rather pointed and hideous.

_Oh _God_! Talk about emphasis on the wrong bloody syllable!_

"Can't get him out of your head, can you?" Hestia said, voice pitched high and sickeningly sweet.

_Maybe Hestia _is_ bloody Umbridge, Polyjuiced and spying on you._

_Conspiracy theorists are ridiculous, you know that, don't you, Tonks?_

"He'd just feel more comfortable with me," said Tonks, voice strained with the effort of morphing away the deep red staining her neck and cheeks, which always felt so strange both because morphing always did, and the hot prickle remained even if the flush vanished.

"With you."

"Yeah. Is there an echo out here?"

"With you," Hestia repeated, slowly, as though to a child, "an _ex_, who jilted him for this very reason."

_That bloody does it._

It was bad enough that ninety-percent of the people she knew thought she'd broken up with Remus because of the werewolf thing, and didn't think any less of her for it; she dealt with it because in secret was the only way they could be together. What she _couldn't_ take was the other people she knew, people in the Order, believing that, and acting like she wasn't worthy to tie Remus' shoes. The break-up had been a bloody awful reaction, a snap decision she would regret for the rest of her life, not least of all because it caused people who should know better to believe a _lie_ -- the very worst of whom was Sirius, whose coldness to her was even worse than the cutting remarks Remus had got him to stop making. You couldn't fight back against that.

Hestia, on the other hand -- Tonks had no problem fighting back against her.

Eighteen months' simmering frustration ought to have erupted, but somehow -- maybe she had managed to channel Remus -- Tonks remained at a low, steady boil.

"There's a pass-word to the shelter, Hestia, which Remus _expressly_ asked me not to share with a soul -- for his safety as much as anyone's. Don't make me do something insulting like cast a _Muffliato_ -- or do a Memory Charm on you. _Go inside the sodding house._"

For a moment, Hestia stared coldly back at her. Then, with a shrug, and a toss of her black curls, Hestia turned on her pointy heel and went.

_That a look on her face says she's not about to let you get away with that, Tonks._

Not that Tonks was afraid of Hestia.

In fact, she pushed the thought out of her head. There were much more important matters at hand.

With a glance over her shoulder at Hestia's retreating form, she muttered a _Muffliato_ anyway, just to cover her tracks, then gave her wand the neat little flick Remus had showed her, carefully enunciating the password: "_Wadiwassi._"

The iron door squeaked open with a sound that took her back to a fourth-year prank she'd played on Mrs. Norris, which had earned her almost a full term's worth of detentions, though it had been worth it to hear that screech that signified someone -- _she_ -- had got the better of that stupid Kneazle.

A tug at her pocket diverted her gaze, and she startled to see that the packet of Drooble's Best Minty Freshening Gum she'd brought with her, per Remus' request, was, as though by invisible fingers, being drawn out. Tonks stared stupidly as the foil wrapper peeled back from one stick...Then the mint green gum was curling over itself, into a wad...

"_SHITE!_"

She jumped to the side, banging her hip on the open shelter door as the wad of gum suddenly shot from the packet with the force of a Bludger pounded by a Beater's bat.

"_AIEEEE!_"

Despite the screaming pain in her hip, Tonks automatically whirled round in response to Hestia's shriek.

She simultaneously wished she hadn't looked, and though she'd never seen a more beautiful sight in her life...

For Hestia, making all manner of unladylike squeals and grunts, had one index finger shoved up her nostril. She was poking about for something with one of her perfectly manicured nails....Oh, she'd got it...Was pulling it out...It was...

_Oh. bloody. buggering. hell._

Minty green.

Not a booger. Gum.

The gum from Tonks' pocket. It had shot up Hestia's nose. But how on earth...?

_Wadiwassi._

The pass-word was a _spell_!

_You are an idiot, Tonks. A stupid, sodding great _idiot_. Remember when Remus asked you yesterday afternoon when you were doing your post-transformation checklist, and Remus made such a great thing of the gum, which you thought was totally weird cos he _never_ chews gum? Yeah, next time he asks for something out of character, _don't_ fall for the, "Then I can give you a good morning kiss" line, will you?_

The Marauding bastard.

Even if he _had_ just undergone a horrifyingly painful transformation.

Talking of which...She surreptitiously turned around and moved toward the shelter door...

...but didn't get there before Hestia called, "Really, _Nymphadora_, I thought even _you_ would know this wasn't the time to joke."

Except that it was, though Tonks, stifling a laugh as she dropped to duck under the short door. Remus had given permission.

As she stepped down into the shelter, she glanced back over her shoulder, "Yes, but aren't you glad your nostril feels minty fresh?"

She waited till she saw Hestia's ordinarily pink face go tomato red with rage just before then pulled the door shut over the image, and let out a giggle of her own.

Actually, it was more of a cackle, but the sound, was drowned out by the clang of the iron. When the metallic echo had ceased, the silence of the dark space in which she stood seemed thick and oppressive enough in and of itself to keep anyone out of -- or within -- the shelter.

She didn't immediately take out her wand to show her in what corner of in this pitch dark, cold cavern Remus lay. She didn't reach out a hand to feel for the wall, to help her get her bearings. She didn't blink, or breathe. All action was bound by the particular brand of slithering fear that wound its way through every inch of the shelter and coiled around her heart, constricting and squeezing so that not a muscle could function, nor even her blood course a millimetre forward through her veins.

She told herself it was because of what she was imagining: a family of mild-looking brown-haired people resembling Remus -- his grandparents, his father -- huddled here in terror of an air-raid whilst, from the village, sirens wailed, and the hum of aeroplane motors drew ever nearer, bring with them the thunder of bombs. It was what she told herself , but she knew in her heart that her paralysis wasn't the bi-product of a bad vibe imprinted on this place because of its dark history, which she, a witch, born two generations too late, could never wrap her mind fully around; and as the shelter never had been used as it was intended, it wasn't likely that the purpose had left such a strong mark. No, what gripped Tonks was magic. _Dark_ residual magic. A variety, which she'd sensed once before...

_The crack of Apparition still rang in the crisp October air as the door of Hagrid's hut banged open and the groundskeeper blundered out, fumbling in his pocket for his key ring, jangling them as he searched for the one to open the golden gates to the school._

_"Wotcher, Hagrid," said Tonks._

_"Lo, Tonks," he replied, turning the key in the lock. "What, er, brings you 'ere tonight? Not that I won' always be glad t'see yer face, since yeh stopped Dung from Imperiusing me."_

_Hagrid stepped aside to let her pass through the gate._

_"Just a visit," she replied, hopefully casually; but casual was difficult when your voice was shaking with anxious anticipation. "I'm a bit worried about Remus."_

_The gate clanged shut behind her as Hagrid leant back against it. "Worried about...Remus..._Lupin_?"_

_He wasn't meeting her eyes, and guilty knowledge couldn't have been written more clearly on the bits of his face not covered by black hair if the actual words, "There's something off about Remus and I know what it is" had been written there._

_But though her heart had leapt into her throat, pounding, and her stomach churned with dread and anger and most of all hurt, she did her best to keep a mild expression. Like damned Remus._

_"Are there any other Remuses who work here that I don't know about?" she said._

_Hagrid's bushy black beard bobbed, and Tonks guessed that if his throat were visible, she'd have seen an enormous Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. The black eyes still didn't meet hers, and his fingers toyed with the golden bars of the gate. "It's just, he's, erm, indisposed."_

_"Is he?" said Tonks, probably without enough concern for a quasi-girlfriend trying not to appear suspicious; but then, Hagrid wasn't astute at the best of times, and now he was more troubled with covering for Remus than anything else. "Indisposed in what way?"_

_Hagrid's eyes rolled upward, silver as they caught the moonlight. They darted abruptly down again, settling on his great shuffling feet, and his lips barely moved between the matted curls of beard as he muttered, "Bit sick."_

_"Did he tell you to tell me that?"_

_Hagrid looked up at her, but seemed to shrink back against the fence. "Beg yer pardon?"_

_"Only we're quite close, Remus and I, if you know what I mean--"_

_"Yer sweet on each other."_

_"Yes, that's what I mean. I would have thought he'd tell me if he was ill."_

_"Erm, well, you know, male ego an' all that. Don' want the ladies to think we're weak."_

_If not for the fact that Hagrid already had made it perfectly clear that she'd been right to suspect Remus was avoiding her and keeping something from her, Tonks might have been convinced by that._

_"Silly sods, the lot of you," she said, shaking her head. "I'll tell him so when I see him. Don't let him know I'm coming up, will you, Hagrid?"_

_She turned and took a few steps toward the school, but was stopped by a hand the size of a dustbin lid catching her arm._

_"Yeh really shouldn' go up," Hagrid said urgently. "Lupin won' open his door ter yer, an' If yer don' believe me, ask Professor Dumbledore."_

_Unsure how to get Hagrid to release her, Tonks nodded and said, "All right. I'll have a word with Dumbledore."_

_Colour returned to Hagrid's face, and he let out a breath that could have uprooted a small tree._

_"That's right," he said, with the wobbly smile of a person relieved to have been let off the hook, which Hagrid wore so often. "Talk ter Dumbledore, Tonks. He'll explain everything." Releasing her arm, he added, "I'll jus' let 'im know yer comin' up--"_

_But Tonks had taken her Comet out of her pocket, enlarged it, and mounted up._

_"Hey!" shouted Hagrid as she kicked off the ground. "Where the bloody hell do yeh think yer goin'?"_

_Ignoring him, Tonks leaned forward on her broom and swooped up through the air toward the windows of Remus' rooms. She would catch him in the act -- the act of what, she wasn't sure, though wishful thinking and a flickering orange glow led her first to the office window. The male ego wasn't the only bruisable one, and hers would be less so if she found he'd brushed her off to do school work, or his precious Magical Creature research, than if she found him in his personal suite of rooms, entertaining another witch as he had her mere weeks ago. If he was two-timing her, as Desdemona was convinced, Merlin help him, no amount of Defence expertise in the world would protect him against _her_ arts._

_Pulling her broom to a hover in front of Remus' office window, she let go with one hand, pulling her sleeve over it, to wipe the condensation from the leaded glass panes as soundlessly as she could._

_Not soundless enough._

_Against the backdrop of a fire in the great hearth, the outline of a huge dog curled up on the hearth rug, sat up, ears pointed on the alert. Tonks gasped, rocking her broomstick, as a pair of gleaming amber eyes locked on her. The dog startled, too, scrambling to his feet, hackles raised._

_She told herself she was imagining a look of recognition passing across the dog's face. She didn't know any dogs on the Hogwarts grounds, except for Fang, and why would he be in Remus' office? Unless he was sick, and Remus was looking after him for Hagrid, and Hagrid had been covering for himself...But no, Fang was black, and this dog, even though cloaked in shadows, was grey. Silvery grey, in fact, and not a dog at all, but a wolf, she saw as he stepped into the moonlight._

_Was Remus learning Animagery? Is that why he'd avoided--_

_The train of thought was interrupted as a chill snaked up her spine, an evil more real and close than any she'd encountered in her Dark Arts training, clutching at her and dragging her one mental step backward._

_The moonlight._

_All at once, her mind registered the precise shape of the snout...the pupils in the amber eyes...the tufted tail...the reflection of the full moon, directly over the shaggy canine face in the window._

_Not a wolf._

_A _were_wolf._

_Tonks' hands flew to her mouth, and she barely locked her knees around her Comet in time to stop herself flipping off the broom._

_"Oh my God," she whispered. "Remus."_

_The werewolf's head drooped. Tonks' broom shot backward a few feet as he turned swiftly, his enormous, sinewy side passing by the window, brushing against it. For just an instant Tonks felt his power, and every fibre of her seized up in dread of fur and fang leaping through the window, consuming her._

_But he kept walking away from her, until the tufted tail hanging between the hind legs, which had to be larger than a small horse's, disappeared into the shadows._

_When he had gone, the relief Tonks expected to flood through her, warming and blessed, never came. There was only cold -- numbing cold in her bones and blood, emanating from the invisible hand that clutched her shoulder..._

_Black rags of robes that stank of death and decay swept around her, enveloping her in a suffocating blanket of patchwork images as she fell down...down...down...through a veil, and onto a hospital bed surrounded by green-robed Dementors who wore the faces of the people she knew...Her mother, sighing hopelessly, saying "Honestly, Nymphadora..." as she cast householdy spell after householdy spell in Tonks' flat...Desdemona saying, "Get over him, Tonks, can't you see he's not that into you? He's just too polite to say he's too old for you, and a girl like you couldn't possibly be enough for his needs..." Remus, gaunt and grim and ragged, giving her a long look of longing, and a murmured apology, as he turned away carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders...Rufus Scrimgeour, saying, "You fall too much, and without your morphing, you're nothing to the department..." And finally her own mouth open in a silent "No" and her shapeless form, mousy-haired form falling, falling through space when the golden Auror badge ripped from her robes..._

"_Expecto Patronum_," Tonks whispered in the dark of the bunker, as she remembered doing outside his office, and though now there were no Dementors for her pig spirit guardian to charge at and root out with its snout, the sight of the curlicue tail as she stampeded on her dainty cloven-feet, pot belly swaying, made her smile, and feel pink all over. As it had done that long-ago night, evil's coils released her heart, and it began to beat again; against its rhythm, her mind supplied the repeated phrase: _Remus. That's Remus._

Her eyes followed her Patronus through the darkness until it gradually lost its shape, and was nothing more than a swirl of silver, and then a wisp of faintly shimmering dust, and then nothing. Continuing to stare at the place in the air where it vanished, Tonks noticed, for the first time, a light so wan it could hardly be called a beam, filtering down from some sort of chimney. When she squinted, she made out the shape of a ladder with broken rungs leading up toward the light. It must have been some sort of alternate exit from the air-raid shelter, should falling debris have blocked the main entrance. Had the ladder been broken to prevent Remus from getting out via the escape hatch? The light fell in a criss-crossed pattern on the wall, indicating bars or some sort metal grate over the top.

_To let air in,_ she thought. _A solid covering, and he'd have suffocated._

For some reason, that thought made a lump well up in her throat. Though she knew there was no chance of anything of the sort having happened to Remus, her pulse quickened with a sense of urgency.

"_Lumos_," she said, and bluish light illuminated the corrugated steel walls of the bunker...

...along with the white, naked form of a man, curled in a in a foetal position on the dirt floor.

Tonks called his name hoarsely as she bolted toward him, but he didn't stir. God, his skin was ghastly, marred by greenish bruising. As his side expanded minutely with his shallow breathing, she could count every rib, make out the rise of his collarbone and shoulder blade; if she could see his back, she knew she'd be able to discern each vertebrae. The matted hair falling over his forehead, and the growth of beard, seemed to have gained new grey strands, though she hoped it was just the odd light from her wand.

Leaning in for a closer look, her foot caught on something metallic and rattling on the floor, and she crashed to her knees on the ground beside him. Before she could drag her attention back to Remus, her gaze was caught by the object that had tripped her: several lengths of chain protruding from the wall. From the open shackles lying to one side of him, Tonks judged that they must have been enchanted to release him at moonset. As she was wondering how the human-sized cuffs could have accommodated the much larger limbs and neck of a werewolf, she noticed two shackles still around the ankle and wrist on the side on which he was lying -- far too big, about the right size for the shape she remembered. They must also have been charmed to shift with his size. But why hadn't they shrunk and opened, as the others had done? Her eyes followed the trail of the chains from the cuffs, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to see that they had pulled loose from their bolts in the wall.

Dear Merlin -- Remus had broken his chains.

The chains that were meant to protect him from the werewolf's hunger for flesh.

Her eyes snapped back to the circular bruises around his wrists and throat. _How hurt was he?_

She drew the remaining shackles from around his ankle and wrist and kicked the chains aside, not minding the pain when she stubbed her toe through her trainer. Casting a quick glance around the small space, she spied a bundle of cloth in the middle of the floor. She Summoned it, and as it flew to her, it unfurled to reveal his robe -- in tatters. It hardly looked better after a _Reparo_ (How many times had he destroyed his clothing, and pieced it back together again?) and _dear God_, she wanted to cry because the fabric was so, so thin.

He didn't stir as she carefully pulled his clothing around him, and Tonks couldn't decide whether it was a good sign that she hadn't hurt him, or indicative of him being even worse off than she feared.

Seated to the side of him, his head cradled in her lap, she touched her wand to his forehead. "_Rennervate._"

She held her breath, fearful of jarring him and mistaking that movement for his awakening. Was it her imagination, or had his eyelids, almost transparent and spidered with veins, twitched? No -- the lines at the corners of his eyes were deepening; his golden lashes were parting.

Next thing she knew, a pair of blue eyes was peering up at her. The whites were dull, and bloodshot, but the irises were so, so beautifully blue. And though the upward curve of his ashen lips was so slight that only a person who knew him well would call it a smile, Tonks saw it and felt no doubt that he was very, very pleased to see her.

"G'morning, Elphine."

She'd never heard a more wonderful sound than his low, rasping voice at that moment. His hair felt so soft between her fingers as she stroked it, loving every grey strand. As his face swam before her, and her emotions kept swinging somewhere between deepest sorrow and utmost joy, her body thrummed with delirium.

"I'm jolly glad you're awake, Lupin, cos there's something I've got to ask you."

A valley formed between his eyebrows. "What's that?"

"Who the hell was that _Wadiwassi_ meant for?"

Eyes brilliant and dancing, Remus laughed.

And coughed.

Wincing, he clutched at his side and drew his knees up toward his chest.

"What's wrong?" Tonks asked, frantic again as her conscience took up duty as a Howler.

_Stupid, stupid idiot Tonks! You should have seen to that first thing? What are you thinking, cracking jokes at a time like this?_

But Remus was chuckling again, in between coughs, and rubbing his cheek affectionately against her knee. "I trust that by _Who the hell was it meant for?_ you're telling me it affected someone other than yourself?"

"Hestia. I brought her along in case you were hurt. Are you?"

"I thought you might," said Remus, looking up at her with more smug gittishness than he ought to be capable of producing after the night he'd had. "I'd a hunch she might have annoyed you."

She probably shouldn't do, but Tonks couldn't stop herself arching an eyebrow at him. "Are you saying I'm predictable?"

"I think it's that I'm _not_ saying you're predictable."

"I'd be impressed with the clarity of your Inner Eye, except that having a hunch Hestia might annoy me is on par with having a hunch Sirius might experience utter loathing toward Snape."

Another bout of laughter brought another bout with pain, which his clenched teeth and screwed up eyes told her was worse than the first wave.

"Are your ribs broken?" Tonks asked.

"I'm sure they're just bruised," said Remus, voice pinched with strain as he trailed his fingers gingerly down his side.

"What happened?"

"Memory's a bit fuzzy."

"Then how can you be sure they're only bruised?"

Remus looked at her for a moment, lips pressed together, weighing his words. "My guess is I threw myself against the wall in the attempt to break free."

She showed him the chains and told him how she'd found him.

"Explains the ache in my hip and shoulder," he said.

Alarmed by his bland disinterest almost as much as by what had happened to him, Tonks didn't stop to think before she blurted, "Do injuries you receive in your werewolf form carry over when you're back in your own body?"

Again, that moment of consideration before he answered, which gave Tonks just enough time to mentally scold herself for drawing more attention to his condition than the situation already had.

"Not precisely," he said, and then, with a puff of a laugh, added, "and thank Merlin, or I'd probably look like Mad-Eye after so many years of biting and scratching myself."

Tonks didn't follow up on the comment, and though hurt that he kept brushing her off, she squared her shoulders and did her best to let it roll off her back, and focused instead on how happy he'd looked to see her when he'd opened his eyes. He did care for her -- loved her, in fact. He was just being protective again, as Kingsley had suggested to her so long ago. She didn't need his protection, but maybe he needed to protect her in order to feel strong. She could give him that.

_What if he doesn't think you're strong enough to know the truth, and therefore not strong enough for him?_

"Shall I take you to Hestia?" Tonks asked, voice sharp in response to her inner voice, which seemed to startle Remus. Trying for a more controlled tone, she went on, "Or d'you want me to bring her to you? She's right pissed off at me, you know, for not letting her in. I got an idea she wanted to see you starkers."

Remus chuckled -- or coughed. "Word around the Order has it she's wanted to see me starkers since I was a fifth year and she was a first."

_Oh, that horrible little cow! You really need to show her who -- and who alone, forever and ever, amen -- gets to see Remus starkers._

Tonks snorted. "Had a crush on you, maybe, but I promise you, first year girls don't want to see naked boys."

"Even if they're prefects?"

"Conceited bastard," said Tonks, lightly swatting his shoulder -- not the side that had strained most against his bonds. "Now answer the sodding question," she added, even though it was pretty obvious from the tangent that he didn't feel up to moving to the house, but didn't want to talk about the alternative. But she had to do something, and she didn't know what else to do.

"If you'll lend me a shoulder," he said, pushing himself to sit upright, "I can make it to the house."

"Thought you'd say that," she said as she draped his arm over her shoulder.

He looked sideways at her. "Are you saying I'm predictable?"

Tonks grunted, and so did he, as she hoisted him to him to his feet.  
"I think it's that I'm _not_ saying you're predictable."

_Actually, it has a lot more to do with what _Remus_ isn't saying. And you ought to be saying a hell of a lot more._

She ignored that voice. Right now, Remus didn't need her to say anything. He needed her to do what she hadn't been able to do for him before the Oak Moon rose. At the moment, that meant seeing him steady on his feet.

As she struggled to hold him securely around his slim waist whilst being careful of his ribs, he caught her eye.

"Thank you for not bringing her in," he said. "I'm just sorry _you_ had to see this."

The pure gratitude softening his haggard features touched her deeply; at the same time, she hated that he was ashamed, hated herself for not being able to convey to him that he needn't fear rejection from her.

_But why wouldn't he? You _have_ rejected him, when he needed you most. He won't forget that easily. Time doesn't heal all wounds -- he knows that better than anyone._

Tears welled in her eyes; she was torn between looking away because she didn't want him to think she was upset by what she'd seen here, and not wanting to look away because he might think _she_ was ashamed.

She settled for blinking, hard.

"What is it?" Remus asked, anxiety lending yet more strain to his already hoarse voice.

When she opened her eyes, and spoke, the words came out sounding more desperate and pleading than she meant for them to. "Why won't you take Wolfsbane Potion? You'd keep your mind...You wouldn't hurt yourself..."

Sighing heavily, Remus looked away. She knew that expression well, saw plain as the nose on Snape's face that Remus' thoughts were fixed on a very clear why. But one that he wouldn't open up to her.

_Next thing you know, he'll be looking at you again, with that damn composure, probably wearing that ironic little smile, maybe even crack a joke. And you'll be feeling confused, frustrated, and inadequate. Again._

Except that this time, when Remus slipped out of her supportive arms, leant against the wall, rubbing his hands over his upper arms, as if to warm himself, and looked up at her, she could think of no other word for the look on his face than _raw_. She gasped, because she'd never seen him look like that, and she almost didn't recognise him.

At length he said, "When I have taken a week's regimen of Wolfsbane Potion, I retain full awareness of not only my human thought process, but every werewolf instinct and desire, as well."

His eyes darkened; his gaze didn't actually move from hers, but he wasn't looking at her anymore. At some point, though, he'd taken her hand, laced his fingers through hers, and held it very tightly.

"At Oak Moon," he went on, and Tonks, breathless, almost regretted her wish for him to open up, because he looked like he was reliving a nightmare. "I've never been more frightened, Elphine. Not even by Dementors."

He fell silent, and thankfully didn't expect her to say anything, because she didn't know what she could possibly say after that, to a man in whose face she could see a terrified five year old boy in a hospital bed, who couldn't understand that he'd been bitten by a monster and consequently had become one himself.

After a moment his eyes found hers again, and he gave her a small, sad smile. "It's cowardly, but I'd rather not know -- or remember -- what I want to do when I'm transformed."

Still holding his hand, Tonks pressed herself against him and hugged him fiercely. "You're the bravest person I know. The truest Gryffindor."

He stood a little stiffly in her embrace, but she felt his hand in her hair, and then his cheek resting against her head as he released her hand and settled his in the small of her back. His lips brushed her forehead, and he murmured against her skin. "I think you're forgetting about Harry Potter."

"No," said Tonks, shaking her head as she leaned back to look up at him. "I haven't, and I mean it."

His smile widened, and his eyes were so bright. She knew he was going to kiss her, which sent a thrill through her, but when he leaned into her, she held him back with her hand pressed lightly to his chest.

"Didn't you want to chew a bit of that gum you asked me to bring?"

His raspy chuckle tickled her ears, his beard and breath her neck...And then his mouth was on hers, kissing her hard at first, and searing, until his lips melted hers and they glided together, soft and smooth. He kissed her exactly how she liked, tracing the inner edge of her lip with his tongue, exploring tentatively, eliciting her small sounds of pleasure as invitation before he held her face in his hands and deepened the kiss.

There was no mistaking his affection, or his arousal, and Tonks wondered whether the actions weren't fuelled by reaction against the horrible things he'd thought and felt last night, if maybe he was driven by the need to find himself again in this most instinctively human of ways. If so, she didn't care. She wanted him to need her; if this was what he needed, she wouldn't deny him. And after all, it wasn't as if he was the only one who wanted to kiss...touch...love..._God_...there was adoration on his lips, and as he poured it into her, there was no room for feelings of inadequacy.

Also, there was no room for broken -- or bruised -- ribs, as was proved by Remus breaking the kiss too soon, pulling away from her with a hiss of pain.

Tonks was a little surprised at how instantaneously she regained her composure when a split-second before she'd been breathless, mind given over to body. She reckoned it indicated just how anxious she yet was about him.

"Come on, then," she slipping into the crook of his arm to support him, "into the house with you so Hestia can mend your ribs, Molly can fill you up--"

"You brought Molly along, as well?"

Great. You've embarrassed him with all this attention. _Couldn't you have just asked her to send breakfast with you?_

_No -- this is good for him. He can't shut himself off. He needs to see how many people care for him, that it's not just you, and not unreasonable of you, to want to be let in._

"Someone had to cook you a proper hot meal," she said. "I think she figured out we're still together."

As they took their first halting steps up the slight incline to the door, Remus glanced down at her with a look of alarm. "What did she say?"

"Only that you should concentrate on getting inside and letting them look after you so _I_ can help you with that other thing on your very manly mind."

He chuckled a little, his grin boyish as his hair fell into his eyes. "Molly didn't say that."

"Oh. Right, that was me."

As they stepped out into the light, Tonks _felt_ light, even though Remus leaned heavily on her. This was a break-through, him letting her support him, and even more, him confessing to her about his fear. The setting of each full moon had always represented a chance to start anew, but now they were really and truly stepping out of the darkness, and into the light. Seeing the gratitude and love in his eyes when she looked up at him, and their eyes met, every ounce of work she'd put into this relationship felt very, absolutely worth it.

Except for this secrecy business.

"You made him _walk_ back?" Hestia's shrill voice greeted them at the kitchen door. "Merlin's beard, Nymphadora! I don't care if he is an ex-boyfriend, he's an _Order colleague_, and we all need him in one piece!"

Somehow managing to glower at Tonks and simper at Remus at the same time, Hestia gave her wand a flourishing sweep and conjured a stretcher.

"Lie down, Remus dear. If you've injured your ribs, climbing up that pokey old staircase is the last thing you need to do."

Remus opened his mouth in protest, as did Tonks, but somehow -- she had no real idea just what happened -- it all ended with Remus appeasing Hestia, who smirked victoriously at Tonks as she levitated him up to the staircase to the bedroom.

When Tonks tried to go into the room to hear Hestia's prognosis, the rosy-cheeked witch blocked the doorway.

"I'm sorry, but you can't come in," said Hestia. "Healer-patient confidentiality, you know."

And she shut the door in Tonks face.

Locked it, too.

Tonks tried an _Alohamora_, which didn't work, and she heard Hestia giggle and say, "I was asked expressly not to reveal the pass-word!"

_Yes, sir,_ Tonks thought as she clomped downstairs. _Something has got to be done about this matter of secrecy._

_Or Hestia will have to be hexed to next week._

Hestia's red, puffed-up face as she crammed a plump finger up her nose to fish for a wad of gum drifted to the forefront of Tonks' memory, and she had to sit on the staircase lest she tumble down it for laughing.

_If there's one thing in this world you can be confident of, it's that your boyfriend won't hesitate to help you get your own back at Hestia Jones._

* * *

_**A/N: Thanks to all who have read and commented on the previous chapters. All who offer feedback this time will get a Marauder Remus of their very own to help you get your own back at your own personal nemesis.**_


	4. Between the Woman and the Serpent

**_A/N: Sorry about the delay in updating. The holidays and a cold got the better of me! Hope you still remember the fic, and enjoy this chapter. :)_

* * *

  
3. Between the Woman and the Serpent**

"--and I think a dozen mince pies along with the Christmas cakes and the pudding will do for all those hungry boys, but is there something in particular Remus likes? He's got a bit of a sweet tooth, hasn't he, Tonks?"

At her name, (or was it at Remus' name?) Tonks, who had been too immersed in taking in the details of the Weasley house on this, her first visit to the Burrow, to more than half-listen -- if even half -- to Molly's chatter, snapped upright in her straight-backed chair, smacking her knees on the underside of the solid oak table as she uncurled them from beneath her in her seat.

_Don't you dare swear, Tonks,_ she commanded herself, clenching her teeth to bite back the _bloody buggering hell_ that was on the tip of her tongue and which she was pretty sure Molly would consider a choice word -- as in, the _wrong_ choice. _This is your chance to show her that even though her teenaged daughter thinks you're cool for wearing tatty clothes and punk hair and having got all the Weird Sisters' autographs, you're an adult role model, _her_ equal..._

...and good enough for Remus.

Cos you are_ good enough for him._

And she can't help but see it.

Even if it is a bit of an odd coincidence that Hestia had just dropped into Grimmauld when Molly Flooed to invite you over for a cuppa. With a home-cooked meal for Remus and Sirius, who'd already eaten the takeaway you brought them at bloody dinnertime_._

But, bending to slide a tray of biscuits out of the oven, Molly merely smiled over her shoulder at her. Not the stiff, polite smile Tonks had come to expect from Mrs. Weasley, either -- but the same motherly one, which made her brown eyes so _warm_, as she gave Remus.

"Just chatter about Christmas dinner, don't mind me," said Molly. Still smiling, her forehead, red and moist with sweat, crinkled as beneath her fiery fringe her eyebrows knit together. "Did you hurt your knees? Only I've a whole cupboard full of bruise-healing paste, thanks to five boys who are mad about Quidditch.."

Tonks shook her head, speechless with surprise. Forgiveness _and_ concern -- from _Molly Weasley_.

"Thanks, but I'm okay," she managed after staring stupidly for a full minute -- not that any of the Burrow's wonderful clocks had supplied that information. Feeling it couldn't hurt to apologise anyway, or butter Molly up with a compliment, she went on. "Sorry I tuned out, though. I was just..."

Her gaze swept the kitchen again. Though technically the space could only be described as cramped, Tonks felt cosy rather than claustrophobic. Perhaps the clutter lent a sense of being in her own element, but somehow it was more than that. It was more like a sense of feeling at home in her family's house. Which was very strange, as she'd always felt rather like a mermaid out of water in her mother's kitchen, where every work surface was spic and span, but the memories of cooking lessons-turned-quarrels and absurd expectations that gave way to spectacular failures lingered and made the air in the room thick and suffocating. Here there was only the warmth of an oven which, if the mouth-watering aromas of bread and cakes and Sunday roasts spoke truly, never stopped baking. Molly might shout in frustration from time to time, but the spirits that dwelt in this kitchen were the ones borne of the laughter of seven children who feasted on love.

_Too bad tone of them's an ungrateful little cretin who'd rather line his pockets with Ministry lies. A right little Scrooge that one. Hopefully, for Molly's sake, he'll get a visit from the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future, and have a change of heart._

"It's easy to get distracted here," Tonks said, struggling not to let her voice reveal what she was thinking, that the next time she saw Percy at the Ministry she'd be hard-pressed not to take him by the robes and shake him. "Your house is just so _interesting_."

_Oh bugger. Oh bloody buggering hell. You did _not_ just tell Molly her house was _interesting_. That's what you say when you want to say something's horrible!_

At least you can thank Merlin she hadn't served you tea yet, and you didn't have anything to spill like you always seem to do when you open mouth, insert both feet, and your hands, as well.

"Molly..." Her voice came out a pathetic whimper; the table seemed enormous as she felt herself sliding down in her seat, her posture one that would have made her mother's face go livid as Walburga Black's portrait, and possibly use a few -- albeit in a low, calm tone, though one that managed to be a good deal more frightening than the shrieking. "That came out all..."

Wrong.

She'd been wrong again about Molly, who was giving her a smile -- a real one; Tonks kept repeating it because she could hardly believe it -- of understanding.

And she was levitating the tea things and a tray of biscuits and cheese to the table right in front of her.

"From a girl who likes pink and purple and polka-dotted hair," said Molly, looking at Tonks with twinkling and teasing eyes as she took the seat at the foot of the table, next to her, "I'll take interesting as a very high compliment."

"You know, I never tried polka-dot hair before."

Tonks scrunched up her nose, pictured pink with purple dots, felt the familiar tingling sensation in her scalp as her short, spiky locks lengthened to a sleek, chin-length bob, and watched Molly's face light up.

"I can't say it suits you, exactly," she said, pouring a cup of tea for Tonks, "but it's very impressive."

"Thanks," said Tonks, hoping Molly realised she meant for the tea as well as the compliment. She morphed again, removing the purple, but keeping the coif. _That cow Hestia'll see who turns Remus' head when you go back to Headquarters._ "You know Remus fancies the pink."

She hadn't really meant to say it, and the instant she realised she had, her face matched the shade.

_Please, Merlin, please, please, please don't let her ask _why_ Remus likes you pink..._

"That reminds me..." Molly sipped her tea, then set her mug down abruptly as she turned in her chair so she could look through the living room doorway. "I've been putting off starting Remus' Christmas jumper..."

Tonks craned her neck to peer into the other room as Molly Summoned a skein of yarn from a basket beside an armchair.

_Any chance, nice as Molly's being to you tonight, that she'll knit _you_ a jumper for Christmas? Only that might be a totally idiotic thing to wish for, cos she could use it to pay you back for calling her décor 'interesting'..._

"I thought blue would do nicely for him," Molly said, handing the yarn over to Tonks. "All his clothes seem to be brown or grey. I won't do his initial on the front, because that might be a bit much to push on him, if I'm giving him a spot of colour, too...Though I suppose if he's really feeling adventurous he could swap with Ron for the maroon one with an R in gold."

"He'll love the blue," Tonks told her, running her fingers over the soft wool thread that was so much nicer than the few course old jumpers Remus owned. _Molly might do you a grey or brown jumper to encourage you not to do such daft things to your hair._ "If only cos I'll say _I_ love it and think it brings out the colour of his eyes."

"Yes, I had thought of his lovely blue eyes," Molly said, blotchy red and pink tingeing her plump cheeks as she abruptly rose and snatched the yarn back from Tonks. She turned sharply on her heel and bustled into the living room to restore her knitting basket back to order. For the first time, instead of assuming the worst, that she'd offended Mrs. Weasley, Tonks choked back a laugh at Molly's embarrassment. Apparently she had the teeniest bit of a crush on Remus.

_Funny how it bothers you about Hestia fancying him, but not Molly._

But Hestia wasn't a married woman with seven children. Remus had let Molly cry all over him, and his eyes were, indeed, very lovely. Had Molly noticed how long his pale gold lashes were?

Oh God -- how could Tonks _not_ laugh at the hilarious image of Molly standing in the knitting supplies aisle at Witch Crafts, scanning the blue shades of yarn for the perfect match to Remus' eyes?

_Even you wouldn't go to that much trouble for him._

Pressing her lips together so tightly that her teeth dug into them, Tonks somehow managed not to laugh, and even managed to completely squash the urge by the time Molly turned around again. Which was a good job since, as Molly resumed her seat at the table and took a long drink of tea, her expression had become very serious. Nervous, too, given the way her teacup rattled on its saucer as she set it down.

_Probably she's afraid of being hexed to oblivion by a psycho-bitch Auror when she tells you she thinks Remus could do so much better than you and that as you're speaking, Hestia's at Grimmauld showing Remus what he's missing out on in the domestic department._

Silly, really.

It's Hestia who Molly ought to be worried about getting hexed to oblivion by a psycho-bitch Auror.

But when Molly turned her brown eyes, wide with guilt, up to Tonks, what she said was: "I know you're wondering why I asked you here tonight when I've hardly given you the time of day since we met last June."

"Oh no," Tonks interrupted, thinking she might help herself by absolving Molly of her guilt issues. "I--"

"I'm sorry for that," Molly went on, over her, "It's just shameful, really, that I didn't take the time to make friends when we were staying at Grimmauld."

"There wasn't much time to be had."

"No, but I could have _made_ time. I normally do, but..." Her gaze dropped, and when she spoke again, her words were half-swallowed, lodged in the back of her throat. "I'm afraid I made up my mind about you right from the off, without getting to _really_ know you."

A lump was forming in Tonks' throat, but she still made herself joke, even though her voice came out pinched and horse. "S'okay. I _am_ a dismal failure at all things householdy, and dead clumsy, too."

"It wasn't that," said Molly. "I mean, it was, partly. I took it to mean you were flighty and careless in general."

"My own mum calls me flighty and careless." _And a few other, worse, things._ "Really," she said, too forcefully as she spoke over her inner voice. "It's really okay. Nothing I'm not used to."

"You're _not_ those things, though," Molly insisted. "At least in places other than the kitchen. I should have tried harder to see that, especially since there was no mistaking the look in your eyes the other week, at Remus' house. And he's always been so obviously in love with you, too."

Halfway to her mouth with a bit of cheese, Tonks' jaw and her fingers went slack, and the cheese dropped onto the floor. She didn't -- couldn't, it was as if she was bloody _Stunned_ -- pick it up. _Remus was obviously...?_

"And for Merlin's sake," Molly continued, shaking her head, "your _job_ should have spoken to me of how much depth and strength of character you've got. Remus even said as much to me one night when you'd been over and I was exasperated about something or other you'd said or done. I don't even remember now."

Her words trailed away into a heavy sigh, and the Burrow fell silent except for the odd squeaks and creaks of the ramshackle house bracing against the wind that whipped around its crooked angles. Molly sipped her tea, and Tonks sat slumped in her chair, watching her fingers pick at the edge of the chequered tablecloth.

She could see the whole scenario playing out so clearly in her mind's eye: herself, offering to help in the kitchen but being shooed away by a wary Molly, only to fall under Mrs. Weasley's disapproving eye as she listened to the schemes the twins were plotting for the new term, or boasting to the kids about her own school day hi-jinks, or morphing Ginny's face with a high-style hairdo to help the teenager figure out a new, mature look. There was nothing Tonks could do, it seemed, except morph a daft nose or something to try and cheer poor Harry up, that Molly approved of. And Remus just sat by quietly, trying not to look as if he thought more of her than he did any other woman in the Order, occasionally frowning at Molly as he brooded about how to defend his secret girlfriend's character whilst maintaining their cover.

A small part of her went a bit mushy inside at the chivalry of it; she loved that Remus cared about her reputation and wanted everyone to think as well of her as he did. The other, bigger, part of her, which apparently was centred in the pit of her stomach, tied itself into a hard, tight knot much like the one her fingers were making of the corner of the tablecloth. She hated that she hadn't managed to rise above the gossip and rumours about her relationship with Remus and prove to the Order that she really was cut from Hufflepuff cloth and respected Remus as much as any of them.

_And you hate that Remus thinks you need his help coming into your own in the Order._

"I should have taken what he said to heart," Molly said. "He's a very clever man. But when I make up my mind about people, it stays made up, no matter what clever people try to talk me around. I'm not proud of it," she added with a sigh, "but unfortunately that's how I am sometimes, and..." She gazed into her teacup as though looking to read an answer in the leaves. "I admit that at the time, I thought Remus speaking highly of you said more about him than it did about you."

Releasing the tablecloth, not caring that she'd left greasy fingerprints on it, Tonks sat up and levelled Molly with _her_ gaze. "Why? Cos you read all that shi--" she caught herself in the nick of time "--crap the about me in the _Daily Prophet_ gossip columns after Remus resigned from Hogwarts? Cos Remus saying nice things about that girl makes him Saint Lupin the Incomparably Charitable?"

Molly's face matched her hair, and she wore an open-mouthed expression that looked as if the force of Tonks' words had knocked the wind out of her. In fact, Tonks herself was rather breathless from the explosion of accusations. Her chest felt tight, as though more of the same line were battling to get out, but she sat silent, chest heaving.

_You need to lay off. Molly invited you over here to bloody apologise for misjudging you. Do you expect her to follow through with that, after you've thrown it all back in her face? It's _you_ you're mainly pissed off at, not Molly, not even Hestia or anyone else in the Order. Just you and your snap judgments that got you into this mess in the first place. You made this bed, and you've lain in it for eighteen months. It won't kill you to lie in it a bit longer. The least you can do, really..._

But it was hard -- so very, very hard -- to do that after all this time. Though Molly hadn't yet got around to what was, presumably, the object of this conversation, how her opinion had changed, Tonks felt the walls of her resolve to bear up under whatever criticism came her way for the sake of protecting her precious relationship, crumble.

In eighteen months, the sting from the more horrible of the editorials had never lessened; she would never forget how those days leading up to her Auror qualification, which should have been so joyous, had been marred not only by the absence of the man she loved, but by utter strangers who felt compelled to _"...inquire as to whether the Ministry of Magic had plans to lower Auror training admission standards to include OWL-level students, as _they_ demonstrated the ability to identify a werewolf, whilst those currently enrolled in the programme had failed to do so after spending the better part of a year face-to-face with one"_ and to _"...express waning confidence in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for even considering the appointment of a Dark Wizard Chaser who not only is a known shape-shifter and relative to a notorious family of Death Eaters, but who fraternises with the most deadly and disgusting of Dark Creatures."_

She had to release what had eaten at her since then but, probably luckily for Tonks and her tendency to blurt out things she later regretted, Molly found her voice first.

"For what it's worth," she said, "When those stories were published, I didn't blame you one bit for ending it with Remus. I was horrified to learn one of those..." Her face reddened, along with her lower lip as she caught it between her teeth and bit hard. "...Well, I'll just say it, one of those horrible creatures, had been so near my children all year, and I couldn't stop thinking that your poor parents must be furious with him for taking you in. I told Arthur if it had happened to _my_ only daughter, I'd be calling for the Werewolf Capture Unit to go after that...that..."

Apparently Molly didn't have it in her, after all, to speak of Remus as she'd once thought of him. Tonks understood how she felt. There was no comfort for her to take from hearing that Molly hadn't always thought her in the wrong, not when it threw Remus into that horrible, unjust, untrue light. The worst feeling she'd dealt with in all the time they had been secretly together was that she hated herself for willingly leading the whole of Wizarding society -- _even your own parents, for bloody Merlin's sake_ -- to believe that she had been as repulsed by her romantic partner's true identity as everyone else; that she had not been party to his no doubt sinister designs on Hogwarts; that she rejected him and the months spent with him as fully as she embraced the career and the three years she'd given to training for it...

"Let me guess," Tonks said, wondering how her voice could sound so small and sad even as she felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You met Remus, realised he was a wonderful, lovely man, and asked yourself how on earth any woman could break up with him, even if he did get a little hairy and howly once a month."

"Oh yes," said Molly. "It helped that all the children were upset about him leaving school. They said he was the best Defence professor they'd ever had. Dear Ronnie -- I overheard him put his foot down with Ginny and the twins that the first letter Pigwigeon should deliver had to be to Professor Lupin, saying they were sorry he wouldn't be back and hoped he found another job soon. And something about feeling guilty for something he'd said to Remus when he found out about..."

Tonks waited for a moment for Molly to finish the thought, but when there was no indication she would, filled in, "The werewolf thing."

Molly nodded.

"Remus showed me that letter," Tonks said. It made his month."

"He said such lovely things about the children, the night Dumbledore brought him here to introduce us before the first official Order meeting. He even seemed to think the twins were wonderful students. I knew he wasn't telling the truth, but I appreciated it all the same."

"Fred and George are rather brilliant in their own way," Tonks said. "Remus has a soft spot for trouble-makers."

Looking askance, Molly shook her head and poured herself another cup of tea. "I'm afraid I'm getting a little off-track. What I want to say is: it was wrong of me to judge you, and I hope you can forgive me."

Tonks smiled, and felt tears prick at her eyes. _Forgiveness._ Her gaze automatically flicked downward to the charm bracelet on her wrist, to the milky pink opal-encrusted Gebo, rune of forgiveness and love. It still hurt to know that Molly -- and so many others -- had assumed so much about her; but she readily gave what Molly asked for, which had first been given so freely to her.

_Maybe there's a chance she'll see Remus isn't so incomparable, after all -- or at least that you share one of his wonderful qualities._

Along with a certain disregard for rules, a rather brilliant mind for pranks, a disinclination to keep a tidy house, an unhealthy love of chocolate, and a penchant for baggy, broken-in clothes.

When Molly, looking relieved, settled comfortably back in her chair, Tonks expected that the conversation would take a turn for the light. Maybe more about Christmas at the Burrow, and householdy preparations, which Tonks would do her best to appear interested in and knowledgeable about.

What Molly said was: "Wonderful man though he is, it can't be easy, can it?"

Startled by the unexpected question, and a bit baffled as to what Molly meant, Tonks shook her head vaguely.

Molly heaved a sigh, presumably of sympathy, given _her_ headshake.

"It's not as simple as him turning into a wolf one night a month and having to be locked up, is it? Merlin knows illness and unemployment alone take a painful toll on every couple, and the pair of you had both to contend with when you were together. Not to mention what people think of werewolves, and those discriminatory laws..."

It was exactly what Tonks was up against, but while it was good to know other people acknowledged the complexities of their relationship, she wondered what Molly was getting at. She and Remus were perfectly aware of the obstacles they were up against, and did their best not to dwell on them.

"I think I felt like I could judge you," Molly went on, "because I chose to be with a poor man a lot of my family and friends didn't approve of."

Tonks' mouth opened in protest, but before she could get a word out, Molly said quickly, "I know it's not exactly the same, or _right_, but that's how I justified it. I also forgot how young you were when the truth about Remus came to light. How could I blame you for not being up to the enormous task of a relationship with him?

"But I _was_ up to it!" Tonks blurted and, realising Molly had only figured out that she and Remus were still in love with each other, but not that they were still together, added, "I _am_ up to it! I didn't break up with him because he was a werewolf. I knew from the beginning that he was."

Now it was Molly dropping her food; only she wasn't so astonished that she was paralysed into leaving it there. She managed to keep on gawping at Tonks as she bent to pick up the biscuit. "You mean it was all show, so you could make the Auror squad?"

Tonks bristled. Technically, yes, it was; but she didn't want to hear it put that way. First of all, Remus had been as in favour of secrecy as she. Second, what other choice did she have? Being an Auror was her life's dream. With Sirius Black at large and _innocent_, and the guilty Peter Pettigrew alive and on the run as well, up to Merlin knew what, and Remus and Dumbledore convinced that whisperings of great evil had been heard abroad, it seemed imperative that she join the Auror force and seek real justice and protect the Wizarding world from real danger. It was unfortunate how it affected Remus, and it wasn't that she didn't fear that some part of him might believe she was ashamed of him...But they both believed, with their whole hearts, in a greater good than themselves. Surely as a member of the Order of the Phoenix herself, Molly could understand sacrifice?

"I did break up with him for a few days," Tonks admitted, "but it was about something else he'd kept from me, not the werewolf thing. Except for that, we've been together this whole time. It didn't seem important for the Order to know...We've all too many secrets to keep already without people having to trouble themselves with not letting it slip that Remus and Tonks are shagging..."

Over brown eyes that had swelled to the size of saucers, Molly's eyebrows disappeared into her fringe.

_Oh bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger. You've done it now, Tonks. She'll never forgive you for talking about going to bed with Remus the wonderful and lovely and incomparably charitable in that crass way--_

Her self-recriminating thoughts ceased as she realised that the look on Molly's face wasn't scandalised.

"You knew all along," she whispered, sounding almost...Dare Tonks say _awe-struck_? "And you went out with him anyway."

Apart from the unflagging confidence Remus had always had that she would qualify as an Auror, Tonks had never had such a sense of another person being impressed by her. Not her ability to change her face and body. Just _her_.

"I knew what I was getting into," she said. "I made a choice."

"It can't have been easy."

Tonks gave a snort of laughter. In some ways it had been ridiculously easy. The amount of time she'd spent mulling over it, anyway, certainly didn't indicate it had been a particularly troubling decision. Though in reality, she couldn't remember a sleepless night being such an agony as the one that followed seeing Remus in a werewolf's form for the first time, nor a day she'd been worse in Stealth and Tracking, excepting, of course, her final exam.

"Well, I was pretty taken with him," she joked, and thankfully Molly laughed with her.

But they eventually fell silent, and Molly's brows remained slightly raised. Clearly, she wanted a straight answer to the question.

"You won't think I'm shallow and don't deserve him if I admit I had to think about it?"

The warmth in Molly's eyes touched Tonks to her core, and she felt a swell of affection for her at being given one of those truly motherly smiles she'd seen Molly give her children, and Harry, and even, on occasion, Remus.

_How long's it been since someone looked at you like that? You don't even remember the last time you had a heart-to-heart with your own mum. Certainly not about this great mess with Remus._

The pang of sadness in the thought was driven away by Molly's fingers brushing a strand of purple hair back from her face.

"It speaks very highly of you that you _did_ think through it, and made a choice. That's what love is. A choice, every day, to be with someone and make it work, no matter what might try to stand in your way."

An aching grin split across Tonks' face.

_Of course she's paying you a lovely compliment like that, now she knows the truth about you and Remus. You're so right for each other, and you've been through more with him in two years than some couples go through in a lifetime, just like she said. Why wouldn't she be impressed?_

You're in very good company, talking about love with Molly Weasley. She knows what she's talking about.

"Now," said Molly, withdrawing her hand from Tonks' cheek as she stood. She took out her wand and with one sweeping gesture, sent the tea things to the sink. "Will you think I'm an old busybody housewitch if I ask what made you choose him?"

_"Ah, Nymphadora." Professor Dumbledore's greeting, in duet with the creak of his chair as he rose from his desk, filled her ears before she'd set foot in his office. "How good of you take a few moments out of your no doubt very full training schedule to drop in for a chat. Please."_

His bright blue eyes twinkled kindly over his half-moon spectacles as he gestured for her to take a seat across from his expansive desk.

Tonks remained rooted to the floor in the doorway, rather wrong-footed by his genuine cordiality. It had been this way each time Professor Sprout had found her rule-breaking beyond Head of House's jurisdiction, and Tonks had found herself quaking before a Headmaster with an unnerving way of remaining as calm and kind and even quirky as ever whilst delivering behavioural lectures she would never forget; somehow she never quite realised he was doling out detentions and depriving her of House Points, as well. Now, though, she was not a student, and Dumbledore had more reason than ever not to be cordial to her. For all intents and purposes, she'd as good as trespassed on school grounds last night.

Of course, what she'd learnt during that little visit indicated that Dumbledore himself wasn't operating his school entirely within the circumference of the law.

She stepped into the circular tower office, stumbling a little over an ornate Persian rug (an illegal flying carpet?) and practically falling into the offered chair.

"Was that your Patronus that summoned me?" she asked.

Dumbledore smiled as he resumed his seat behind the desk. "It was."

"I never knew they could be charmed to deliver messages."

"It's always nice to find multiple uses for a thing, don't you think? Especially when the primary one is to deal with something as unpleasant as Dementors."

"Quite," Tonks replied, thinking that there hadn't been anything particularly pleasant about the way her stomach had felt at a silvery Phoenix opening his beak and Dumbledore's sage tones crackling out:

"My groundskeeper informs me that you came to the school to pay me a visit last night. Unfortunately I was engaged at the Hog's Head resolving a pesky family situation. I am terribly sorry to have missed you, particularly as it has been my intent to speak with you regarding the services you rendered Mr. Hagrid concerning the flock of stolen Snidgets. Please come by my office at your earliest convenience. I shall look forward to being surprised -- pleasantly so, of course, as always -- by your remarkable talent for creating unique coifs."

It would've been a really wonderful invitation, had she not been up the whole night before, trying to talk herself out of niggling guilt which, when she got up, had settled in as nausea. Really, she shouldn't have been surprised by his welcoming demeanour, after a summons like that. What had she expected? For Dumbledore to lure her in with proper invitation (if Patronuses counted, and she doubted her mother would say they did) and then do an about face and feed her to the Giant Squid?

Steepling his long fingers together on his desk, Dumbledore said, "Although my Patronus messenger has already conveyed my regrets at having missed you last night, I would like to express them again, in person."

Tonks shuffled her feet under her chair. "Thank you, Sir."

"I would like to commend you again for your truly remarkable sleuthing, which spared Rubeus so much additional unnecessary legal entanglement."

"Thank you, Sir," Tonks repeated, resisting the urge to, with less cordiality than he was showing her, ask Dumbledore whether he really considered Hippogriffs biting students as the sort of thing that resulted in unnecessary_ legal entanglement and, if so, whether that same blasé attitude accompanied his stance on werewolves living on school grounds._

"And I trust all goes well with your Auror training? It's your third year in the programme, I think?"

"Pretty well, thanks -- except for Stealth and Tracking. I'm clumsy as ever."

"But even more charming, which always more than made up for any lack of grace. As does your violet and yellow coif, which brings to mind a species of nymphaea caerulea I once had the pleasure of seeing on holiday to Egypt."

"Really?" Tonks asked, reaching up to touch her spiky hairdo. "Only it was a bit of an experiment, and I was afraid it made me look peaky--"

She stopped short, facing going red in the face even though Dumbledore was watching her with a look that if she didn't know better, she would have called delighted; there was something familiar about it, as well. Both were ridiculous. That was just Dumbledore's look of amused tolerance. It was familiar because she'd seen it every time she'd been sent here as a kid, just before she found herself strapped with a lifetime ban on Hogsmeade visits and the month's worth of detentions that were responsible for her never having cultivated much interest in Quidditch.

"I hope your family thing's all sorted?" she blurted; apparently, at the height of embarrassment, her mother's etiquette training, as deeply engrained in her as she wished Stealth to be, kicked in.

Dumbledore's cheek twitched beneath his beard, and was that Tonks' imagination, or had he just...rolled his eyes?

Who were_ Dumbledore's family, anyway? She'd never heard of anyone being related to him; nor had he ever struck her as the sort of person who came from any where or from any one._

"I appreciate your concern, Nymphadora," he replied in a tone that made her write off the eye-roll as the invention of a brain that had got no sleep after making a very distressing discovery. "The family member concerned is an odd sort -- and I shall leave it at that, as I am certain you have little time to spare today. And I hope you will understand that it is with utmost concern that you not lose your entire lunch hour to me that I come right out and ask: What was it you wish to speak with me about?"

"Well, I..." Her feet shuffled in earnest, and her robes now sported two sweaty, wrinkled splotches where she was twisting them in her hands. "Hagrid didn't get it quite right. It was actually Re -- Lupin -- I came to see."

Beneath his silver mustache, Dumbledore's lip turned up at the corner. "Ah. In retrospect, Remus does seem a far more likely and interesting member of my staff for such a lovely young lady as yourself to go so far out of her way to see. His office, I believe, is never less than fully stocked with a case of Honeyduke's Best Chocolate and a Dark Creature or two?"

Was he being coy? Did he know what she'd seen last night? Damn it...She couldn't turn it around like that. Dumbledore's kindness always had roughly the same affect as Veritaserum on her, with a pinch of Elixir of Guilt, as well. She couldn't deceive him, no matter how bad it made her look.

"Actually," she said, her voice shaky, and her fingers squeezing her hair at the roots, "Hagrid got it wrong because I mislead him."She couldn't meet his eyes; nor could she look away.

"I'll just come right out with it, Sir."

He spread his hands. "I have always admired forthrightness."

"Lupin's a werewolf."

It was the sort of statement that normally was followed by a silence that seemed endless and painful. Dumbledore, however, merely folded his fingers together again and gave her a measured look as he spoke.

"You must be a very remarkable woman, Nymphadora, for Remus to have told you that. He's never voluntarily told another living soul, apart from the other staff, which I asked him to do."

"You knew, then?" Tonks was unsure whether this surprised her or not, but didn't have time to dwell on it.

"I have known since the night Remus was bitten, when he was five years old," said Dumbledore, "and I have kept his secret these...my, nearly thirty years now. How time flies. I remember him as a small boy, and a student here, as if it were only yesterday."

Tonks, however, was stuck on the bit about Remus being bitten at the age of five. Merlin's beard, that such a small child survived a werewolf attack at all was nothing short of miraculous. That Dumbledore could speak of it with so much calm, as if it were nothing, as if it were not a defining moment in the life of that small boy he apparently knew so well, and thought so fondly of, was...was...

Disjointed thoughts pummelled her from all directions, and she reached for the nearest one she could grab onto, and blurted: "You thought it was safe for him to transform on school grounds?"

Dumbledore's thick eyebrows arched on his high forehead, touching the brim of his wizard's hat of smoky velvet. "Oh, not at all. That's why the Shrieking Shack was built, and the Whomping Willow planted to hide the tunnel entrance."

Tonks sank back in her chair, needing the support of the sturdy antique upholstered back. All those stories...the "Most Haunted Dwelling in Britain" was originally haunted by...

...Remus?

Her_ Remus?_

Having stood without her noticing and paced to stand beside his desk, so tall and thin and erect, like one of the spires of the castle, Dumbledore removed his spectacles and was buffing them on the lapel of his robe.

"But in those days there was no Wolfsbane Potion. Now Remus does not lose his mind to the werewolf, and there is no need to lock him away when the moon is full." Settling his eyeglasses once more on the bridge of his long nose, he met her eye with a slight smile. "He transforms right in his office."

"I know," said Tonks without really meaning to. She held her breath as the Headmaster regarded her steadily. Was he using Legilimency on her? Did he already know what she'd done last night? Oh God -- could Remus have told him?

"No," Dumbledore's voice crept gently into her musings. "Remus never even told his dearest friends."

Tonks' confusion as to what he was talking about must have showed on her face, because Dumbledore gave her a small, apologetic smile.

"About his condition," he explained. "Forgive me, I rather leapt back to an earlier point in our conversation with no warning. I forget, sometimes, that people are not mind-readers."

"If I were Professor Trelawney, I'd have followed you."

Dumbledore chuckled. "Sybill follows the beat of her own drum, I think."

"Quite." Tonks shook herself out of the stupor induced by the Headmaster's winning humour. "You were saying about Remus' friends?"

"Ah, yes. Thank you."

Dumbledore strode the few paces to the fireplace mantel, where a group of photographs in elegant gilt frames were artistically arranged. They were black and white, and too shadowy in the shifting firelight for Tonks to make out from across the room; she noticed that the Headmaster didn't seem to be looking at them, anyway.

"Remus' schoolmates -- the boys in his year, anyway -- observed the pattern of his illnesses and ascertained the truth for themselves."

Tonks clutched the arms of her chair. "Sirius Black?"

Dumbledore turned slightly to look over his shoulder at her, eyebrows raised again. In surprise?

"Yes," he answered, slowly. Measuring his words? "Mr. Black was one of Remus' closest friends. The ring-leader, I always suspected, in making certain that Remus knew they loved him unconditionally."

The note of sadness in his voice was unmistakable, and it startled Tonks, who had always felt rage simmering inside at the mention of the murderous branch of her family tree. She'd felt this way when Remus spoke of Black, as well.

"You were surprised when Black turned out to be a Death Eater?"

"Oh, yes," said Dumbledore sincerely, turning to face her fully. "Terribly so."

He looked suddenly older, and grey. It must have been a trick of the firelight.

"I trusted Sirius no less than any of Remus' friends. That his loyalties lay with his brother and cousins, in service to the Dark Lord, hit terribly hard."

Dumbledore trusted Black. What did he mean by that? Trusted him how? For no reason at all, she remembered the photograph she'd seen on Remus' mantel, of a large group including Dumbledore and Black, among others. She'd heard whispers, at the Ministry, of an underground soldiering group in the war, which Frank and Alice Longbottom had allegedly been part of, helmed by Albus Dumbledore. Was that what Dumbledore spoke of? Had Remus -- and Black -- been members? It made sense that betrayal would hit hardest in a group of that sort.

"Remus didn't tell me," Tonks heard herself admit. "I...well I came here to speak to him, and I saw him."

Again, she wanted to avert her gaze, but Dumbledore's sharp blue eyes held her, as if by wand. "I've always suspected that Wolfsbane Potion would allow Remus to retain his exemplary manners and warm hospitality even whilst in his werewolf form. Though I must confess I am rather pleasantly surprised that he managed to work a doorknob with a wolf's paw. I do not imagine, however, he was able to speak with you, as you hoped?"

Tonks' face burned. This was why Dumbledore made such an effective Headmaster. He never diminished a person's dignity, and he always assumed that everyone had walked the straight and narrow. It was a brilliant tactic for guilting people, and absolutely did the trick for Tonks' already active conscience. A second later, she had blurted out to him the full truth of what had taken place last night.

"Turns out he was_ keeping something from me," she concluded. "Just nothing like I'd imagined." She hung her head and, sighing, ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry I snooped about castle grounds."_

"Rubeus would not have let you in were you not entirely trustworthy."

His warmth, which shouldn't have been there, not after what she'd done, forcing her way past the gates of his school, sparked the rebellion in her that had not been fully quenched by her guilt.

Looking up at him again, she swallowed, took a deep breath, and said, "That's the thing, Professor. Meaning no disrespect, but you still trust Hagrid_ to be a good judge of character even though he proved not to be a good judge of what creatures are appropriate to give hands-on lessons on in Care Of Magical Creatures."_

"You refer to the Hippogriff incident."

"Yes."

Clasping his hands behind his back, Dumbledore turned and moved back toward his desk, this time stopping just in front of it. He rifled through a stack of parchments, and drew out a folded Daily Prophet.

"I confess I do not always have time to read the newspaper in its entirety once I have completed the crossword," said Dumbledore, carefully spreading it out to the front page, "but I gather that it has chosen to overlook Hagrid's side of the story. Which is perfectly understandable, given that Mr. Malfoy's patronage is of greater value to the editorial staff than the truth."

In spite of herself, Tonks laughed. She never could resist a jab at Lucius Malfoy -- or at the Daily Prophet and its sorry excuses for journalists, for that matter. But she felt a sharp kick from within, not to let herself get distracted by clever quips.

"Still," she said, voice tight and tinged with frustration that putting on a serious face was no easy task, "regardless of what the Prophet says, everybody knows a student was seriously injured by a beast that ranks fairly high on the danger scale, and it's a legitimate question as to whether dangerous creatures ought to be brought into -- or out to -- the Care of Magical Creatures classroom."

"I think, Nymphadora, that if you were to pursue a career in Magical Litigation, you would be as successful in that field as you will be as an Auror." He stepped around his desk and seated himself once more behind it. "Hagrid's side of the story is that the injured student disregarded instructions for how to approach the creature. Which implies, does it not, that had the boy heeded the lesson of the day, he would not have been harmed?"

"Yes, but the risk--"

"Other students approached the Hippogriff and experienced only the power and wonder of the creature," said Dumbledore. "Danger, if respected, need not be feared or avoided." He paused just long enough for the statement to resonate, and for Tonks to think that it was eloquent enough to be a part of a revised edition of Bartlett's Familiar Wizard Quotations, then went on, "But forgive me. You did not give up your lunch hour to discuss that_ member of my staff."_

Resuming her seat seemed the thing to do, and Tonks did so quickly.

"Hagrid's got a heart of gold," she said. "I don't dislike him, but he has made some pretty huge bad judgment calls, and you admitted you never suspected Black of treachery. How can you trust a Dark Creature? Especially one who won't even admit what he is? Remus isn't registered, either, I checked."

She flushed again that she'd spoken with such borderline disrespect to the Headmaster and most powerful, respected wizard of their age -- but Dumbledore didn't seem to mind as he calmly folded his hands together atop his desk.

"Registration is not a requirement so much as a recommendation."

"No," said Tonks, "but why not register? Support Services is designed to help, and..." She stopped short of saying Remus looked like he could have done with some help before he got this job. "Well, if Remus **is** trustworthy, wouldn't admission and registration be the way to prove it?"

Dumbledore studied her for a moment, during which she began to second-guess her argument, though she didn't exactly have a counter one.

"You raise an excellent question, Nymphadora, which has been posed before, and not answered, I might add, by the finest minds in Wizarding philosophical history. Why do we mistrust Dark Creatures? Specifically werewolves, who, unlike any other Dark Creatures, are fully human twenty-seven days out of twenty-eight each lunar cycle? Even Werewolf Support Services is continually shunted between the Beasts and Beings divisions."

Tonks' thoughts touched on her own experiences with the Magical Beings department where, before she'd been accepted into the Auror training programme, she'd been required to undergo rigorous observation of the extent of her shape-shifting capabilities. She'd never been so self-conscious about her morphing; there had been a few at school, of course, who were leery of her ability to look like whomever she wanted, but the scientific types at the ministry had managed to make her feel at once like a genetic marvel and a freak of nature -- in neither case, at all like a person. Even now, the memory made her feel queasy. Put like that, she could understand why Remus would avoid the Ministry.

"We mistrust them because of the bad ones, I reckon," Tonks said. "The ones like Fenrir Greyback, who doesn't seem very human any of the days in a lunar cycle, does he?"

For an instant, Dumbledore's eyes clouded, and his face went grey, but before Tonks could contemplate it, the colour returned with a small smile. "In your acquaintance with Remus, has he struck you as anything other than completely human? Were you surprised to discover his lycanthropy?"

"I nearly fell off my broomstick," Tonks said. "It never would have occurred to me...He's the last person you'd expect..."

Her words trailed away as the thought that had troubled her most during eighteen or so hours since seeing him, because it had remained nebulous and out of reach, solidified, and touched down. When she saw the wolf looking at her through the office window, she had recognised him instantly as Remus. Paws, tail, fangs, snout, eyes...The werewolf had always been Remus to her. And it had not been fear that nearly sent her plummeting to the ground below. No -- fear had only come when the Dementors closed in around her.

Why? Simply because it was Remus? Because she trusted him?

Yes. Because she trusted him.

She did. Absolutely, without a doubt.

Even though he had, in effect, lied to her by not telling her what he was, still she trusted him. Completely, inexplicably, trusted him with her whole heart.

"Do you ever think what we're doing is mad?" Tonks asked, returning to the present tense of the Burrow's kitchen.

Molly stood at the sink, washing up the remnants of their tea, and looked over her shoulder at Tonks with a brow furrowed in confusion. Clearly she'd not expected her question to be answered with another, apparently unrelated, question.

"I mean," Tonks explained, "we're fighting a war the Ministry denies exists. That snake Snape's privy to all our secrets, and he's not the only one of his who's a bit dodgy. But we accept them all because we trust Dumbledore."

"Yes...." Molly drew the word out, clearly still unsure of how this pertained to Tonks' love life. "That's not madness, though. It's just...right."

"Exactly," Tonks said. "Maybe me being with Remus is mad to other people, but I don't care. He's _right_ for me. I could search the world over and never find another man I trust as completely as I trust him."

Molly sighed, and Tonks, snapping out of her impassioned soliloquising, noticed that the older witch was stood starry-eyed at the sink with one sudsy hand spread across her breast, whilst the other, clutching the rag, dripped dishwater onto the floor. A giggle welled up in Tonks -- which she refused to believe meant she was thrilled she'd said something that inspired precisely the same reaction as one of those drippy Fifi LaFolle novels.

"Actually," Tonks said, "it was really because my Kneazle liked him."

The soppy expression was shoved from Molly's face as her eyebrows collided together at the bridge of her nose. "Your--?"

"My pet Kneazle. Cato." Tonks propped her feet in the seat of the empty chair across from her. "Only he didn't have a name then. I named him Cato cos he seemed like such a wise judge of character. You can't reject someone a Kneazle likes, can you?"

For a moment, Molly continued to regard Tonks with a measure of wariness, but then the corner of her lips tugged upwards, and her eyes glinted in a way that made Tonks sit up straight in astonishment. Why -- _Molly_ was where the twins got it from!

Turning back to the washing up, wringing out her dish cloth, Molly said with no less cheek than Tonks had seen from the Weasley kids, "Arabella Figg would say no."

"Course -- Mrs. Norris likes Filch."

"Quite right." With her wand, Molly sent the clean plates and teacups to their cupboards and cleaned the water off the floor. As she dried her hands on hands on her apron, she said, "Although, comparing Remus to Argus filch is apples to oranges, isn't it?"

"More like apples to sour grapes--Molly?"

For Mrs. Weasley, on her way to the table with two glasses of pumpkin juice, had dropped them. Her face had gone ghastly white, and her eyes were fixed on something in the sitting room.

"Oh my..." Molly gripped the back of a chair for support as Tonks rose from her chair and moved so she could see. "Does it really say...?"

As the Weasley's clock with the nine gold hands loomed before her, Tonks stopped in the doorway to the sitting room, hand flying to her mouth.

Arthur was in Mortal Peril.

"But Arthur's on guard duty," Molly found her shrill voice, "wearing Mad-Eye's Invisibility Cloak. What could possibly...? Oh, Tonks--"

"Don't worry, Molly, I'm sending for Remus," said Tonks, taking out her wand. Molly had caught her other hand, and Tonks squeezed it reassuringly as she took out her wand. "The Order will see Arthur out of this."

_Whatever it is._

She closed her eyes and pictured Remus clasping her rune bracelet around her wrist, telling her he loved her. "_Patronum Nuntius_."

From the tip of her wand emerged a silver curlicue, followed by the rounded rump and hindquarters, slender legs tipped with graceful cloven hooves, short neck, and lastly the snout of her pig Patronus. She morphed her own nose to match, and as she leant forward to touch it to the spirit's shimmering snout, she felt Molly's hand relax slightly.

_Good. If you had to get saddled with a completely laughable Patronus, it ought to be good for cheering people up._

After she'd given it her message that something had happened and Arthur's life hung in the balance, she tapped her wand to its snout and said, "_Oinkus_."

Molly actually laughed as the little wisp of a pig trotted a circle round the kitchen, then pranced out the open window, squealing and grunting quite realistically into the night.

_You've really got to show that trick to Dumbledore. He'd be right chuffed to know you're coming up with pleasanter uses for Patronuses than driving away Dementors, or even than serving as messengers._

It was with a great deal more dignity that Remus' lion Patronus bounded into the Burrow with the brief order to stand by while he contacted Dumbledore, but before it turned again to return to its master, the great shaggy mane brushed against Molly's shoulder.

As if Remus had charmed his Patronus to impart colour and warmth, pink blossomed again on Molly's plump features. _She_ gave Tonks' hand a squeeze, then released it and had her own wand to hand, _Scourgifying_ the spilt pumpkin juice and _Reparoing_ the shattered glasses. A moment later, she'd poured more juice and guided Tonks into the sitting room, where her hand shook as she raised her glass to her mouth, and Molly sat in her armchair and took out the jumper she was knitting for Remus.

"It is easier not to worry knowing Remus is on the case," she said, voice a little higher than usual, pinched, the only indication that the clock behind her showed that her husband was in mortal peril. "Thank you, dear, for sending word to him."

"Sure, Molly," said Tonks, quietly.

She didn't deserve to be thanked. She'd acted reflexively in calling the go-to member of the Order, who just happened to be the man she loved. She hadn't thought about that at all when she'd sent for him.

Or had she?

"Remus has been such a rock since Arthur and I joined the Order," Molly went on. "I was really glad to be able to return the favour by helping out after the...after his..."

"His transformation," Tonks finished for her, realising that for all Molly had talked about the complications that surrounded their relationship as a result of his condition, Molly seemed unable to speak of Remus with werewolf terms.

"Yes," she said, setting her knitting needles to their work with a flick of her wand. "I appreciated the new look that day gave of you, as well. I never guessed you and Remus were...secretly seeing each other. _His_ feelings were obvious, but you're a very good actress."

"Really?" Tonks asked before she'd swallowed, and nearly choked herself on her Pumpkin Juice. Still coughing, she went on, hoarsely, "Only I can't read him half the time."

Molly smiled knowingly as she rocked in her chair. "I've been married for almost thirty years and raised six boys. You'll suss Remus in time."

Tonks started to smile back, but her inner voice reared its head, snatching the bit of encouragement out of her grasp.

_You've come a long way since you first met Remus and accused him of trafficking Dark Creatures on the Black Market, but Molly, wife of thirty years and mother of six boys though she may be, only just sussed you and Remus are together. She can't fully understand the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of your relationship. You know your own doubts. If you want real encouragement, you're going to have to talk to her a bit more._

Another voice argued that now, while the husband of thirty years' life hung in the balance, was not the time to moan about her love troubles.

_Coward! Come on, Tonks, prove you don't have to be a bloody Gryffindor to go out on a limb!_

"What if he's hiding from me?" she asked.

"I'm sure he is -- all men do. But he won't forever."

"How do you know?"

A wave of Molly's wand stopped her knitting, and she turned in her chair to look squarely at Tonks. "The pair of you have what Arthur and I have. When I saw you that day, so single-minded about getting to him...I saw myself, twenty-five years ago."

Molly's face swam in Tonks' eyes, and as she battled to keep the tears at bay, a leaden ball lodged in her throat, which felt to have shrunk to the size of a drinking straw. It wasn't for joy that she wanted to cry, that someone else saw what she had as special, lasting; it wasn't herself she wanted to cry for at all. It was for Molly, not a rush of affection for a remarkable woman who had, somehow, in one night, become a mother to her; but because she knew how Molly must feel, being told to wait, when inside she surely was hell-bent on being with the man she loved.

_Merlin...if you felt like you did after two years of sacrifice and secrecy...how must it feel after thirty years, and seven babies? Not that you'd ever have seven babies...Not that you've ever thought of babies, at all, with--_

Remus' thin face appeared in the fireplace amid the sudden flicker of flame from orange to green. His gaze found hers immediately.

Molly's knitting things clattered to the floor as she sprang from her chair with the dexterity of a younger, lighter woman, and the grace of Tonks as she stumbled over the tatty ottoman. "What word?"

"Sorry, Molly," he said, shaking his head, "none yet, I'm afraid."

Tonks bristled -- but to her chagrin, she knew it had quite a lot to do with the sudden emergence of Hestia's pleasantly plump visage through the logs beside him. He nodded to her, and she pushed the rest of herself through the Floo with a series of grunts that reminded Tonks of the ones she'd charmed her Patronus to make; only they were annoying, unlike Wilbur's, though that was primarily due to the fact that Tonks had to strain to make out Remus' quietly rasping tones:

"I suspect that Dumbledore must already know, and be on it, or he'd have replied to my Patronus."

He spoke with his ever-present, unshatterable calm, and his encouraging smile lingered on Molly as he stepped carefully out of the Floo, mindful of the soot. But when Hestia had gone to Molly, offering her an embrace and words of comfort -- or panic -- his eyes sought Tonks' again. She read the urgency etched in the lines of his forehead, and around his eyes and mouth.

"Tonks, you must go to the Department of Mysteries _now_, disguised as someone who might justifiably be there at this hour--"

Before he'd finished the word, she'd morphed into a squat, homely dishwater blonde she remembered seeing during a night shift. "Janitorial staff," she said, transfiguring her t-shirt and jeans into a plain grey-green work robe.

"That'll do." She joined him at the fireplace, and he leaned into her, lowering his voice. "I don't know what condition Arthur is in, but if it allows, move him as from there as you can."

"Right," said Tonks. "I'm on it." She reached for the box of Floo powder on the mantel, but Remus got to it first.

"Be careful," he said, opening it for her. "We don't know what's happened to him or who's about."

Tonks recognised the earnest look in his eyes that said he wanted, more than anything, to send her off into the likely dangerous unknown with a kiss and words of _I love you_, but of course he couldn't do, not with Hestia here in the room with them. Not for the first time, Tonks wished they weren't bound by secrecy, and felt rebellion swell hotly up in her; for the first time, she very nearly gave into it. This was war. They were soldiers. They didn't have time to play games. There wasn't room to be anything but what they were.

Even if, at the moment, what _she_ was was concealed by the form of a Ministry janitor.

In the end, though, that reminder of how short time was compelled her to nod crisply and say, "You can depend on me."

"I know I can," said Remus.

With that, barely hearing Molly's and Hestia's calls of _Godspeed_ and _Be safe_, Tonks grabbed a pinch of Floo Powder and cast it into the fire. "Ministry of Magic Atrium!"

* * *

**_A/N: Not much Remus in this chapter, but I solemnly swear he'll feature much more prominently in the next two. In the meantime, those of you who let me know what you think of the chapter will get a Patronus message from Remus, or a soot-covered Remus stepping out of your Floo, keen for you to help him get cleaned up._**


	5. In the Waiting Room

**4. In the Waiting Room**

"Right, then, Miss Scrubb..." Amos Diggory didn't look at Tonks as he spoke, but instead ran his hand over his scruffy brown beard as his eyes scanned the pocket-sized notebook he seemed never to have stopped scribbling in since he'd answered her call for help at the Ministry. "Let's just review this timeline once again, shall we?"

"'Course." Tonks did her best to retain the dazed, frazzled expression of she'd affected for her role of Squib janitor instead of rolling her eyes like an impatient Order member. The story she'd given Mr. Diggory hardly warranted the word _timeline_, much less a second telling. Not to mention the _real_ sequence of events were hardly ones she wanted to revisit more than she had to.

Whilst Mr. Diggory studied his notes, Tonks darted her eyes over his shoulder, peering through the double glass doors of the waiting room to the Dangerous Bites ward of St. Mungo's hospital, where Remus was sat beside Hestia Jones. _He_ was the person she really needed to speak to, to compare notes with. In the time it had taken her to find Arthur at the Ministry, get him out of his incriminating location, and get help, Remus likely had ascertained the entire other side of the story from Dumbledore.

As if sensing her gaze on him, Remus turned his head and smiled slightly at her, eyes roving over her from head to toe, looking very much like he'd been afraid she wouldn't turn up in one piece. Of all things at a time like this, she felt a rush of appreciation and affection for him that he could be relieved to see her even when he wasn't seeing _her_, that he could think of her as being in one piece even when it wasn't her own body that had returned from the battlefield. Noticing his gaze lingering considerably lower down than her face, she looked down to see the front of her transfigured grey-green robe stained crimson.

With blood.

She gave her head a very small shake, hoping he understood she meant, _It's not my blood._ His chest rose and fell heavily with what could only be a sigh of relief -- though a troubled look remained on his face, and Tonks guessed that, like herself, he felt the same churning in his stomach as she about whose blood it _was_.

"You were headed home for night--" Mr. Diggory began, but Tonks, snapping back to attention, and her role as Eugenia Scrubb, cut him off.

"'eaded to the Atrium, to mop." She gave the deferential head bob she'd observed in the janitory each the times they'd passed one another in the corridors of the Ministry. "_Then_ 'eaded 'ome for the nigh'. Always finish me work, I do."

"Right..." Mr. Diggory's forehead, which always used to always be so ruddy, but was now ashy -- _has been since his son died,_ Tonks told herself -- furrowed as he scratched something out in his notes and made an amendment. "You were going to take the lift, and that's where you found Mr. Weasley?"

"Yessir. All crumpled up, bleedin' like a..." Shuddering, Tonks closed her eyes, as if that could stop her mind's eye from seeing Arthur as she had found him outside the door of the Department of Mysteries.

"And, thinking his wound resembled a snake bite," said Mr. Diggory, "you thought to send an alarm to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"

"Tha's righ'," Tonks replied, opening her eyes and letting them drift once more to the waiting room doors, to Remus beyond the glass, who was offering a weepy Hestia his handkerchief. God, Tonks thought as her own eyes welled, it felt wrong to ramble on about Arthur like this, but she had to play the part of simple labourer, and she'd seen enough of Eugenia Scrubb to know she'd follow up with something along the lines on, "I reckoned maybe it coulda been a Vampire, but snake popped inter me 'ead firs' of all, sin' me old dad worked in the reptile 'ouse at the London Zoo, an 'e got bit by a snake once an' 'ad a fang scar jus' like tha' one the 'ole res' of 'is life."

"But you never actually _saw_ a snake?" Mr. Diggory asked, looking up at her.

Tonks shook her head emphatically. "Nossir. Nor no other creature."

Which was, in her mind, what clenched for her that Arthur had been attacked by a serpent. It had been no random accident that _he_, of all the people who worked in the Ministry by night, had been wounded _there_.

And Voldemort had that bloody pet snake.

"Very good," said Mr. Diggory briskly, snapping his notebook closed, just as Tonks had begun to doubt he ever would. Tucking the notebook away into the inner pocket of his robes, he took out a small crème-coloured slip of cardstock, stamped with red ink and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and Ministry of Magic seals. "Here's my Calling Card, should you recall anything else that might be of import to our investigation. And if the matter should come to court, you would stand as witness?"

"Yessir," she said, with another bob of her head. "Only I din' know anny-mals was tried for bitin' folk?"

"Of course they are," said Diggory. "Animals are sentient beings. There was a case with a Hippogriff at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry a few years back."

"Oh yeah! But dinne ex-cape?"

Mr. Diggory's eyebrows slanted sharply downward, the scowl making his aquiline nose look almost as hooked as Snape's. "The Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures is engaged in an ongoing search for the fugitive beast, but as McNair -- the head -- let it get away to begin with, I'm not holding my breath."

His frustration was palpable, and part of Tonks felt sorry she couldn't divulge that she knew exactly where the Hippogriff had got to.

"Nor," Mr. Diggory went on, "do I have high expectations of McNair being any more successful at finding the creature that attacked Mr. Weasley, much less its coming to trial."

It was all Tonks could do not to swear at the realisation that McNair -- a sodding _Death Eater_ -- was, as they spoke, "investigating" the attack on Arthur. Damned right, nothing would come to light. Which, she reckoned, was actually probably a blessing in disguise for the Order's cover. Nonetheless, she roiled inside at the sheer injustice of it.

"Incompetent bastards, the lot of 'em," Mr. Diggory was, meanwhile, continuing to rant. "Whole Disposal Committe needs a reshuffle, if you ask me. Werewolf Capture Unit's dropped the ball, too." He gestured toward the Dangerous Bites ward. "Bloke in there bitten last full moon."

Tucking that last tidbit away to relay to Remus later, Tonks regarded Mr. Diggory with interest throughout his rant, then abruptly, his face fell, and his whole body slumped as a sigh seeped out of him.

"My apologies, Miss Scrub," he said, running a hand over his cheek and chin again. "I shouldn't have gone off like that. I suppose I'm a bit frustrated with the Ministry these days."

Though his head was bowed, from her lower vantage point, Tonks saw that his eyes had gone glassy with tears. She felt a prick in her own, and a surge of emotion in her chest that compelled her to reach out and give his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.

"Diggory -- you're the bloke wif the boy wot You-Know-'O killed ain' you?"

Mr. Diggory's head snapped up, and he looked at her with round, red-rimmed eyes. "You believe Potter's story?"

"Why would'n' I believe the Boy 'O Lived?" asked Tonks, unable to resist the opportunity to say, in this guise, what she could not whilst wearing her own face, in any professional capacity. When Mr. Diggory continued to stare, very hard, at her, she squeezed his arm again before withdrawing her hand. "Anyway, I'm righ' sorry 'bout your boy--"

"Cedric."

"Righ'...I know this witch 'o was an 'Ufflepuff wif Cedric, an' she cried at the news. Fine, 'ansome young man 'e was, so she says."

Mr. Diggory's Adam's apple bobbed.

Tonks blushed, and looked down at her shuffling feet. "Sorry, I'm oversteppin' myself..."

"Not at all," said Mr. Diggory, voice choked. "Thank you for your sympathy. It's been...very hard."

"I'm sure." Suddenly needing very much to be with Remus, Tonks asked, "Are you through wif me, Mister Diggory?"

"What's that? Oh..." Mr. Diggory shook off the brooding that had come over him. "Sorry, yes, of course. Are you all right getting home, at this hour, or would you like an escort?"

"Ta," said Tonks, stepping around him, "but I reckoned I migh' wait it out, see if Mr. Weasley pulls through."

"I'm sure Mrs. Weasley will appreciate your support," said Mr. Diggory, "in addition to you likely having saved his life."

Tonks leaned against the waiting room door, pushing it open slightly. "Din' do nuffin'. Righ' place, righ' time."

Mr. Diggory smiled and caught the door. "Think I'll pop my head in, as well, and see if there's any word."

The instant Tonks set foot in the waiting room, Remus was on his feet and striding quickly toward her.

"Are you the one who found Arthur?" he asked, rather more loudly than his usual subdued tone, obviously for their charade.

"Mister Weasley? Yessir. In the nick of time, I 'ope?"

"No news since the Mediwizards brought him in," said Remus, gaze drifting over her head to Mr. Diggory, stood just behind her, "so we can only assume that's good news."

"Has anyone confirmed it was a snakebite?" asked Mr. Diggory.

"I've heard nothing." Remus flicked his eyes significantly, though briefly, down to Tonks, which told her he _had_ heard something -- just not in any official capacity. If only Mr. Diggory would leave, so she and Remus could talk...

_Isn't that lovely of you, Tonks? Amos Diggory's Arthur's and Molly's neighbour and friend. They need him here, supporting them. You'll just have to be patient about the case. And anyway, _you're_ their friend, too; shouldn't you be more concerned about Arthur's well-being than about the technicalities of the case?_

"You're Professor Lupin," Mr. Diggory's voice broke into her self-castigation. "Aren't you?"

Remus gave a very small, uncertain smile. "I was...Now, unfortunately, I am simply _Mister_ Lupin."

Tonks held her breath, as he seemed to be doing, awaiting how he would be received by the parent of a former student.

"You were always Professor to Ced," said Mr. Diggory, and Tonks thought Remus looked almost surprised as, in her peripheral, Mr. Diggory extended his hand to him. "The letter you sent Margaret and me after he...was taken from us...It helped us more than any other, and we received a great many...Anyway, I'm glad to have a chance to thank you."

Before Remus could respond (and the way his mouth hung slightly agape made Tonks suspect he _couldn't_ have done, even if Mr. Diggory had given him a chance), Mr. Diggory withdrew his hand and cleared his throat. "I've just got to nip to the office and file an incident report, and check in with McNair." Turning to go, he said over his shoulder, "If you're still here when Molly comes out, would you please pass along that Arthur's in Margaret's and my thoughts, and we'll be here later?"

"I will," said Remus. "Take care, Mister. Diggory."

"Amos. And thank you again, for all your help, Miss Scrubb.

As soon as the waiting room door had shut behind him, and Mr. Diggory's hunched form disappeared around the corner, Remus reached into the pocket of his overcoat and drew out his wand out just enough to give it a flick. "_Muffliato._"

Hestia was the only other person in the room -- and watching them intently, Tonks noted with a sideways glance -- but it was best to be cautious, as anyone could come out of the double doors to the ward at any moment.

Wasting no time getting down to business, Remus told Tonks quietly, "Not long after you left the Burrow, Fawkes brought word from Dumbledore that Harry had some sort of vision -- he saw Arthur bitten by a snake."

"Oh my God." Tonks' hands flew to her mouth. "What kind of vision? And it's definitely got to be that bloody snake of Voldemort's?"

"Dumbledore gave no details about the vision. He may yet be working that out himself." Remus' lined features were set grimly. "If the snake has truly disappeared, one can only assume."

She explained to him about McNair being on the scene. "He'll cover the snake's trail if it was still about, though I've a pretty good idea it wasn't. I looked all over around the corridor," said Tonks. "I didn't see anyone, or anything, just Arthur..."

She could no longer stop her mind's eye from producing the image of how she'd found him, crumpled on the floor, half-visible as Mad-Eye's Invisibility Cloak had slipped off his shoulders, presumably when he'd collapsed, blood everywhere...

Her breath hitched, and she felt her body instinctively sway toward Remus. His hand moved toward her upper arm, also reflexively, to support her. But Tonks snapped herself ramrod erect, threw her shoulders straight, and stepped back from him.

"I took him to the lifts and sent for the Mediwizards and Amos," she said, "because he's Arthur's friend and not very happy with the Ministry, and I thought he might keep a low profile--"

"The lifts," Remus repeated.

"They were closest, and seemed the most reasonable place for Arthur to be. Worked late, headed home, then..." She couldn't go on, but her mind readily supplied: _thwarted by Voldemort's snake._

She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head, swallowing hard against rising bile at the unwanted images of Arthur nodding off on duty...The silent slithering thing gliding alongside him...Scales shimmering in the dim corridor lamps as Nagini positioned herself over Arthur's sleeping form...Great curved fangs sinking into the pale, freckled arm curled underneath his head as a substitute pillow...Venom, like fire, coursing through Arthur's veins as the blood poured out, staining the carpet...

"Very reasonable," Remus' voice broke in. "Good thinking." His eyes were locked on the front of her robes. She followed his gaze.

...staining her clothes...

"I cleaned his..."

Her voice hitched. A deep breath, but one which was too shallow to provide her lungs with quite enough air, then she tried again.

"I _Scourgified_ the..."

She couldn't say blood, either. And she'd stepped toward Remus again, or he'd moved in to her...The hem of his overcoat brushed her robes.

"I cleaned the floor as best I could, but you know what rubbish I am at householdy charms. I wound up Conjuring a pot plant to hide the...the..."

_That's Arthur's blood all over your clothes. Arthur's blood, staining _you_._

Instinctively, she reached for her wand, but her inner voice stopped her.

_You're a Squib at the moment. Don't break character._

_She argued with herself: But it's Arthur's. bloody. blood. _

The slightly metallic tang pricked her nostrils; the sulphuric, rotten egg smell sickened her. She couldn't take in enough air...She was panting, dizzy...Blood on her clothes, blood on her hands, suffocating, choking her...Flowing out of Arthur...Draining him of colour...ebbing his life away on the floor in a lonely corridor of the Ministry...

Her hands flew up to her chest, fisting the coarse, sullied fabric, and she slumped forward.

"God, Remus..."

His hands on her shoulders held her upright; his stubble scratched against her hair as the top of her bowed head brushed his chin.

"God, I thought he was..._dead_."

"It must have been terrifying."

His low tone rumbled through her, soft breath ruffling her hair, and at last she managed to draw a breath that actually supplied her with oxygen.

"You kept your head, though," he rasped gently, "and likely saved Arthur's life. Not to mention his job, and the Order's cover."

His thumbs lightly stroked her arms, and her heartbeat slowed, levelled out from its erratic tempo.

"Good work, Elphine."

Though his hands were still firmly gripping her shoulders in a way that supported her without belying their relationship, his quiet voice, the one only for her, and the name only he called her, had the same effect that his hand would have, if it were touching her cheek: coaxingher to tilt her face up to his, to meet his eyes, gazing steadily at her. So blue...a calm ocean...

"As I knew you would do," he whispered, as a warm hand covered hers.

As if he'd performed a silent, wandless spell, her fingers relaxed, released her robes. Her hands fell to her sides.

Remus touched her chest. Tonks knew his hand, and without moving her gaze from his, she pictured the breadth of his long fingers spanning the stain.

"_Purgo sceleratus._"

The magic passed from his fingers, through the robe, and into Tonks as a wave of peace and stillness that settled deep into her bones and soul. When Remus moved his hand away a moment later, she realised that she had no longer been leaning into him for support, but standing up straight on her own, refreshed and reassured.

Arthur had not succumbed to Voldemort's attempt at his life.

_What you told Molly before is still true: the Order of the Phoenix will see him through._

Tonks looked around the waiting room, and spied Hestia over Remus' shoulder. Cheeks pinker than usual, she flashed Tonks a mechanical smile before quickly turning away -- looking every inch like a person who didn't want the people she'd been staring at to know she'd been staring and, quite possibly, thinking things they wouldn't like.

"Let me guess," Tonks muttered, "it wasn't Sirius Hestia was trying to impress with her home coking."

"Of course not. It's _me_ she wants to see starkers." Remus' placid smile quirked at the corner and, the way his fringe tumbled over his forehead, slightly more in one eye than the other, made him look absolutely cheeky.

Rolling her eyes, Tonks said, "I can live with that, so long as she didn't make you see what you're missing out on by being with Can't Cook Tonks."

"What's good is gourmet food when you haven't got an interesting conversationalist to eat it with?"

"Oh, so you're with me cos I've got a great personality?" Out the corner of her eye, Tonks saw Hestia watching again. Though the _Muffliato_ Remus had cast (maybe _this_ was really why he had?) kept Hestia from hearing the flirty tone Tonks had used, it didn't make her blind to their body language. Maintaining a platonic distance between herself and him, Tonks folded her arms across her chest and arched her eyebrow.

"Also because you're beautiful," he said.

"When I'm not disguised as a janitor?"

"I only see _your_ eyes, remember?" he said, and somehow the fact that his face was completely neutral when he said it made Tonks' struggle to keep her cover all the more difficult. "There's another thing I hope you haven't forgotten."

"What's that?"

"That you've nothing to fear from me in regard to infidelity. You remember me saying that, don't you?"

How could she ever forget a word of _that_ conversation?

_"This is familiar," Tonks said after she and Remus had stared silently at one another from either side of the open Defence Against the Dark Arts office door for a full minute. "Well -- not the part where I see you with your shirt tail out and bare feet."_

_"You saw me with a tail out and bare feet last night."_

_"Wouldn't it be wolf feet?"_

_Remus didn't laugh at the joke -- not that anyone would have, even under the best of circumstances -- but Tonks was spared a moment of inner self-chastisement for being so stupidly insensitive about his condition when a twitch at the corner of his mouth which, by some miracle, seemed to say that he hadn't taken offence._

_"I mean..." She shifted her weight, pressing her shoulder into the doorjamb. "The bit where I come to your office to apologise to you. That's what's familiar."_

_Guilt whelmed that in just _one_ month of knowing him, this was the second time she'd violated his trust by jumping to ridiculous conclusions, the second time their relationship hinged on her being able to salvage it with the right damned words. Though her inner voice whispered that she'd done too much damage this time, that she was too clumsy and too inept to make this right, she didn't turn tail and run. She'd hurt him before, it was true; but now there was a look in Remus' eyes, extra bright and glassy with fatigue, that she could only call _hope_. Whether hope that she wouldn't reveal his secret, or hope that she wouldn't end it with him because of the truth, she'd no idea. But hope was hope, and his gave her hope._

_At least, until he said, "If you've come to apologise for not being able to go out with me in light of what you learned about me last night, you needn't."_

_Feeling as if she'd taken a Stunner to the gut, Tonks stood stupidly with her mouth agape as Remus retreated into his office and, clasping his hands behind his back and pacing in a professorial manner, went on:_

_"In fact, it's I who ought to be apologising for avoiding you for the past few weeks--"_

_"--month," Tonks interjected without thinking, dizzied by what he was saying. Immediately -- literally -- she bit her tongue and cursed herself for casting stones whilst dwelling in a very glass house._

_Remus, however, absolutely unruffled by her interruption or the blame she cast, almost as if he hadn't heard her, continued, "I ought to have come right out and told you that there was something you needed to know about me before I could, in good conscience, go out with you, but that I could not tell you."_

_It was a good job Tonks was leaning against the doorjamb, as Remus' words, though so softly uttered, fell on her with enough weight to knock her off her feet. The first bit, in particular, she couldn't quite get around. What had she done to make him decide she wouldn't want to go out with him just because he was a werewolf? Had the subject ever even come up? She was reeling too much to recall, too hurt to think clearly. Which was completely audacious, because if a cauldron had ever called a kettle black, it was her getting her feelings hurt that someone had made an assumption about her. And anyway, it was hardly something to take personally, was it?_

_Known werewolves weren't exactly at the top of Wizarding party guest lists. Probably he made that assumption about everybody. Hence keeping it a secret. Which was exactly what Dumbledore had said about it taking a special person for Remus to own up to it._

_She wished, as Dumbledore had intimated, that _she_ could be that special to Remus. She'd thought she was. Didn't he like her enough to want to give her a chance?_

_She didn't know about him, but if there was anything she was sure of right now, it was that she liked him._

_A whole bloody lot._

_Enough to forgive an assumption, enough to ask for forgiveness for hers._

_So, pushing off the doorjamb, she held herself like the Auror-with-a-mission he always said she was -- shoulders back, head high. "That's not what I came to apologise for. May I come in? Only I mean to say a thing or two I reckon you'd prefer me not to say in the middle of a corridor."_

_"Yes," said Remus, standing still and looking a little surprised for a moment before he snapped into action. "Yes, of course. Can I offer you tea?"_

_Tonks, stricken with panic and sweaty palms at the realisation that she had no. bloody. idea what she was going to say to him, declined. When his eyes flickered, then bent, she scolded herself internally for not saying yes to a cuppa. Damn it! He probably thought she was refusing because he was a werewolf._

_Even so, distracted by his polite gesture of clearing clutter off a chair which he offered to her, which recalled to mind Professor Dumbledore's joke about Remus retaining his manners whilst in his werewolf form, she also turned _that_ down. To her further shame, she pictured the wolf that had illustrated one of her childhood storybooks, Willoughby the Wolf Who Wanted To Be a Wizard. Willoughby the Wolf had walked about on his hind legs and wore a Wizard's robes and hat. She envisioned Willoughby here now, in the DADA office, serving tea to her and Dumbledore, wagging his head emotively in response to their conversation, and Merlin -- she wanted to laugh, which was absolutely the most shameful thing of all._

_Probably this was why Remus didn't want to go out with her. He knew how her mind worked, and thought he'd spare himself the indignities her imagination was likely to suffer him._

_After all, she'd done him quite a few indignities without the aid of her overactive imagination, last night foremost among them. Though, the way he'd remarked dryly about last having been seen with a tail and paws, didn't seem to indicate a man who was ashamed._

_On the other hand, if Maintaining a Mysterious Mask were part of the Hogwarts curriculum, Remus surely would have earned higher marks than any student in the history of the school, and been far more qualified to teach it than Defence Against the Dark Arts. And as her meandering circuit led her to the corner of Remus' desk, where the Grindylow tank was perched, her face burned at the memory of pointing out his shabby clothes as indicative of him of being so hard-up for cash that he'd turned to the underground Magical Creature trade._

_But he'd forgiven her for that, if only because he thought her green and naïve._

_In any case, in her moment of shame, she found her angle of apology._

_"When I met you," she said, body turned slightly away from him so that she couldn't see the inevitable hurt that would flicker across his thin, lined face, "and you introduced yourself as the new DADA professor, I thought you looked like you could do with a few Defences. But you're one of the things in our world there aren't any Defences against." She looked over her shoulder at him, took a deep breath, and blurted, "Including me falling for you."_

_He wore the look of a man holding his breath. "Elphine--"_

_"I understand if you've fallen completely off me," Tonks talked over him, her pounding heart driving her to get through this, regardless of what would follow. "I just need you to know that knowing what I know now...It's not changed anything. Not a damned thing, Remus."_

_Though she hadn't expected the statement to wipe the careworn lines from his face, she nonetheless felt a pang of disappointment that while they did appear a little less deeply etched, he still wore a stolid mask._

_Remus turned and strode to the window through which he'd peered at her last night with a wofl's golden irises and slits of pupils. As his long fingers skimmed over the polished oak ledge, she noticed that his narrow shoulders were held absolutely rigid. The muscles at the base of his neck, hidden by his greying hair, highlighted golden in the midday sun that streamed through the leaded glass pane, must be stretched taut._

_"It should have done."_

_That made absolutely no sense coming from a man who'd expected to be dumped because of the truth._

_"Why?" Tonks demanded. "Why should I stop liking you just because you turn into a wolf for a few hours every month?"_

_Remus shook his head. "Not a wolf, Elphine -- a _were_wolf. Didn't your Defence OWL call you to list the five distinguishing features?"_

_The corners of his mouth twitched. In...a smirk? Was he being condescending? Not that she didn't deserve it, but Tonks instinctively bristled, shoulders hunching as she folded her arms across her chest, fingernails digging into skin through the flowing sleeves of her robes. Remus had always expressed such firm belief in her Auror skills. He was such a kind man, a true teacher, through and through. She had to have cut him deeply for him to have stooped to--_

_"I haven't gone off you," his rasping tone broke in -- gently. His lips curved in a genuine smile, not a smirk, and there was nothing of patronisation in his eyes as they held her. Only teasing, and kindness, and...Oh Merlin, he still fancied her, he did...He was stepping toward her, the mask gone, his heart open to her. Tonks' arms uncrossed, and fell to her sides as he drew ever nearer, standing so close that the swish of her robes against his trouser legs seemed noisy in the utter stillness of the office._

_"I probably should have," he went on, "but free spirits like you, people who know what they want and impulsively, recklessly, go after it, have always been deeply attractive to me. I'm shallow enough to take it as the highest of compliments that it's me you want enough to go after impulsively and recklessly." His warm fingers closed around hers. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you the truth."_

_"I know why you didn't. I mean, I did tell you I'd get a warrant to interrogate you about the Dark Creature trade." Though relief was washing over her, and Remus continued to smile, chuckled even, a rumble in his chest which she felt more than heard, she hung her head, spikes of hair rubbing against his jumper. "God, you must've thought I was a complete idiot."_

_"Ironic. Never idiotic."_

_He squeezed her hands, but she still didn't look up. "I came looking for you last night because I thought you were two-timing me."_

_Remus drew her arms around his waist, then let his hands slide up her arms, rubbing her shoulders comfortingly before he rubbed her back and settled them at the small. His prickly chin and cheek scratched against her temple as he kissed her hair, and Tonks released her indrawn breath, then inhaled again, his slightly musky smell of soap and a cedar wardrobe doing more for her than oxygen._

_"That's one thing you never have to worry about if you go out with me," he said._

_It was quite a promise, fidelity, certainly nothing she'd received from any of the blokes she'd gone out with before, and Tonks looked up at him in amazement. She was further surprised to see his eyes criss-crossed at the corners, and twinkling mischievously._

_"Perhaps that's one positive thing about going out with a werewolf -- no competition queuing up."_

_A multitude of emotions barraged Tonks at that moment -- admiration that he could speak so frankly, and without bitterness, about the challenges he faced; a pang that a man who was everything a witch could want in a boyfriend, but for that one thing, was so accepting of the limitations placed upon him; underlying at all, a flutter of happiness and sheer joy that he still wanted her, and would commit himself to her like this._

_And an urge to give him back as good as he gave._

Humour, it seemed, was the one constant they always found no matter what they were up against. It had been that way from the very first day they, as Molly put it, chose to be together. They had clung to it -- sometimes defiantly -- tooth and nail in the face of the obstacles and barriers life apparently was so hell-bent on throwing their way in the years since. Fun-loving as Tonks was, she doubted, from time to time, whether laughter was _always_ the solution. She couldn't make up her mind, for instance, whether it was a sign of Remus' bravery that he'd set _Wadiwassi_ as the password to his shelter a fortnight ago, or if he'd hid behind it. Maybe it wasn't either or; maybe it was both.

Whatever the case, what if something had happened then that was equal to what Molly and Arthur faced now? Would a joke have been enough to get them through? Hence her hesitation.

_Don't be such a worry-wart, Tonks! You've got enough to fret about now without adding what-ifs to your load. Molly seemed sure enough that you and Remus have what it takes to stay together for at least as long as she's been with Arthur, and they'll make it thirty more years...maybe thirty more after that. So do what comes naturally to you!_

Giving in to the inner urging, except for the impulse to break character by poking Remus in the chest, Tonks placed her hands on her hips and adopted her best tone of mock-scolding.

"'Course I remember, and I remember what I said, as well. Or have _you_ forgotten?"

"Refresh my memory," said Remus, though the gleam in his eyes told her the conversation was as vivid in his mind as it was in hers.

"Does that mean you're finally going to set an actual date to take me out for a date? And should I accept when you've just said you're pretty much only going out with me because I'm the only witch who's queued up?"

"Ah," said Remus, wearing a lopsided grin, "but apparently another one's got in line behind you, and I'm not interested in the slightest in taking anyone out but you."

"What if it was someone less annoying and more interesting and more beautiful--"

Her words died, but not because she'd stopped talking. Remus had cast a _Silencio_ over her, and he wore the tender look on his face that he always did in her moments of insecurity -- which had grown less frequent the longer they'd been together -- usually accompanied by his gentle finger pressed against her lips.

"Impossible," he said huskily, moving in closer to her. "Even if there were such a witch in existence, I could never believe in her, nor could I give you up for her. Everything I have -- which isn't much, I know, though I'd appreciate you taking it as a compliment nonetheless -- is invested in you."

Tonks hadn't realised how much she'd wanted to hear those words from Remus' mouth. They'd been together for two years now, but time had not been kind to them. Even during the few months between her discovery that he was a werewolf and his resignation from Hogwarts and all the secrets that event brought to light could hardly be described as blissful; her training schedule had become more rigorous in the run up to her examinations, and Remus' tutoring sessions with Harry Potter frequently clashed with her few free hours.

_Not all that different from now with paired Order assignments often being the only time you get together._

But also as in their days as Professor and Cadet, Tonks wondered from time to time whether snatched moments really were enough for Remus. So many times she sensed a brooding thought lurking behind his charming exterior. Back then it had been his internal conflict about hiding the truth about Sirius from Dumbledore. Knowing what a toll that secret had taken on him, and sensing his tension and turmoil about her -- especially when it came to defending her from the caustic remarks of Sirius, and up till now, Molly -- she feared he would tire of all the energy required to maintain their so often shaky relationship in the midst of everything else they faced daily. Which had all kicked up a notch tonight.

So it was good, very, very good, to hear him declare his steadfast commitment to her.

_Though it sucks, very, very hard, not to be able to throw your arms around him and snog him senseless._

_What **is** the point of all this secrecy, anyway? No one's around but Hestia, and it's not like the Order aren't proven secret keepers. What could it hurt for them to know? Molly does._

Just as Tonks was fully prepared to throw secrecy to the wind and show Remus how much she appreciated his words, a finger tapped her shoulder.

Then, from right behind her, Hestia chirped, "Isn't it a bit odd, you staying around when you're not supposed to know the Weasleys?"

For a moment Tonks stood gritting her teeth at the implication that she wasn't concerned about Arthur, then she slowly turned. Her intent was to stare down the woman who was normally a good six inches shorter than she, but she'd forgotten she wasn't in her own body. She compensated by putting as much authority into her voice as she could muster. _(Thank God you don't have to play a ditzy cockney anymore.)_

"If you found a stranger hexed on the street and took him to hospital, wouldn't you want to stick around and make sure he was okay?"

Hestia's simper faltered. Her beady eyes darted over Tonks' shoulder at Remus, then her lips twitched, stretching her pink cheeks in a too-wide smile. "Well of course I--"

"You're a Healer," Tonks cut in. "Why aren't you with him?"

Face red now, and her small, pointy teeth badger-like, Hestia said sweetly, "You know I'm in Spell Damage, Nymphadora."

Before Tonks could retort, Remus' intervened mildly, "I am sure Molly would appreciate having a medically knowledgeable friend with her at this time. You do have clearance to go beyond the waiting room?"

"Of course." Hestia reached around Tonks and squeezed Remus' arm. "What a good idea, Remus. I'll go to her now."

"Thank you, Hestia," he said, and she turned away, letting her hand slide lingeringly down Remus' arm as she cast one last glance at Tonks.

When Hestia had disappeared into the ward, Remus said, "I know she irritates you, but she is your colleague, Tonks. You cannot keep tweaking her."

Tonks snorted. "This from the man who promised to help me get a proper prank off on her."

"I said I'd consider helping you, depending on what you came up with. Have you come up with anything?"

"I've been a tad busy tonight coming up with how to keep other Order colleagues out of trouble."

Remus looked at her for a moment, and she realised she'd come across more snappishly than she'd intended.

She started to apologise, but he said, "Anyway, there's a difference between playing a prank on a colleague and picking at a colleague over a personal problem. And I do realise Hestia started it by being a bit touchy-feely with me..." He went on, louder, when she started to protest: "...but you're a bigger person than her."

Tonks blinked.

_He thinks you're immature,_ said her inner voice.

"If we weren't so bloody worried about secrecy," she said through her teeth, "then she'd know you're with me, she wouldn't get touchy-feely, and I wouldn't _have_ to have a personal problem with her."

Another moment of silent staring.

_Way to prove your maturity, Tonks._

"Remus," she said, voice small and devoid of bravado, "I'm sorry, I'm just...tonight--"

She stopped, because her thoughts, which had been exploding here and there like the Weasley twins at Grimmauld when they'd first got their Apparition licenses, suddenly melded together and struck her full force.

Also, because Remus' fingers had closed around hers.

"I haven't looked after you properly," he said, eyes searching hers anxiously, all the emotion he'd bottled in front of Mr. Diggory and Hestia now etched plainly on his face. "You've not experienced this before, a colleague falling, and the waiting to find out whether he will live, or die...or be damaged. How are you?"

"I'm..."

Words failed her; no energy remained in her for speech.

Duty, and then the brief respite after,with Remus had, apparently, forestalled reality sinking in and taking its toll on her physically. There had, of course, been that moment of seeing Arthur and her brain registering that he must be dead, but only now, did her knees buckle as all the things Remus said flashed through her mind. Would Arthur die and leave his wife of thirty years and his seven children bereft? Would his body live, but the part of him that was Arthur, be gone -- like Frank and Alice Longbottom? Would he cheat death this time -- only to succumb the next?

For next time, there surely would be. The war had barely even begun. This was just the start of something that would get much, much worse.

She found herself leaning heavily against Remus as he let go of her hand and supported her round the waist, helping her into the chair Hestia had vacated. He knelt in front of her, and took her hands in his.

"Don't be afraid," he murmured.

She shook her head, hot tears stinging her eyes even as her hands went cold as ice and shook. Caution she knew, and danger, and risk -- but till now war had not been so very different from the little field work she'd done in her stint as Auror, or even from training, more thrill than threat. Now, though, was so much more even than a threat.

She wasn't afraid of it.

She was _terrified_.

"Don't be afraid," Remus said again. "This is why we're the Order of the Phoenix. We bear each other up. We are not alone. _You_ are not alone. I am here for you."

Tonks nodded, but the thoughts kept coming.

What had happened to Arthur was not just a random accident, but it was a random attack from Voldemort. He hated the Order, one and all, indiscriminately. He wanted what they were guarding and would try to take it regardless of who might stand in the way. Why--

_One night earlier, and it would have been Remus on guard duty at the Department of Mysteries._

_Remus, bleeding in the corridor..._

_Remus, bleeding in your arms..._

_Remus, lying in the Dangerous Bites ward, you, sitting in the waiting room, while Remus hangs suspended between life and death..._

_It wasn't one night earlier, and it wasn't Remus, but it could have been...and might be, tomorrow night. Hell, it could be this night, a Death Eater trap when he steps out of hospital, and if anything does happen, Good God, Tonks! What in Merlin's name will you do then?_

Remus was to her as Arthur was to Molly.

He'd been a part of her life for more than two years now -- almost her entire adult life. She'd grown up because of him, overcome some of her impulsiveness, shed a lot of her insecurity, come into her own as an Auror. If not for Remus, she wouldn't have known the truth about Sirius; she'd still be calling Voldemort You-Know-Who and be blindly denying his return right along with everyone else in the Auror office _(and so would Kingsley, for that matter, who only joined in the end because _you_ managed to convince him)_. Terrifying as being a member of the Order of the Phoenix had become tonight, she was more convinced than ever that it was right, and good, to be a part of it. And it was only because of Remus that she had this chance.

With him, she had learnt how to love, and how to _be_ loved. She'd never felt for another person what she felt for him, never endured what she'd endured for anyone else. Being with him was pure joy, and she suspected it was so _because_ of all the bad they'd been through. If she had a choice between a perfect life without Remus, and an even more difficult one with him, she would choose the latter, without question.

Because she would be lost without him.

He was so much more than her boyfriend, more even than her lover. He was both of those things, and more, and her best mate. And the _only_ -- literally -- person for the past two years with whom she had been completely, one-hundred percent _honest_ about herself and all that was changing in their world.

She couldn't even imagine who she would be if Remus had not entered her life when he had. On her own she might be a decent person, possibly an okay Auror; but he made her more than that. Even Kingsley had said that -- _Kingsley_, who was as in the dark as everyone else about their relationship status.

And that was another thing. _We bear each other up,_ Remus had said of the Order. _I am here for you._

He wouldn't be there for her -- not if _he_ fell. If none of the Order knew what Remus was to her, how would they bear her up?

_Molly knows, she remembered. Molly likes you -- at least for now. Mothers you, even. She knows what it is to go through this, to deal with the loss, and the waiting; she lost her brothers, last time around._

_If anything were to happen to Remus, she'd see you through._

Except that Molly always turned to Remus herself. Tonks expected that when Molly came out of the ward, she'd be crying on Remus' shoulder herself, as she'd done that night at Grimmauld when she'd seen that boggart...He was everyone's pillar of strength: a member of the old crowd, experienced as Mad-Eye, wise as Dumbledore, yet more approachable.

Even Amos and Margaret Diggory, who only knew Remus through a letter, and word-of-mouth, had taken comfort from him.

Remus was the kind of wizard you only met once in a lifetime -- if you were lucky. She must have been born under some incredibly lucky star to have had something as wonderful happen to her as a wizard like him falling in love with her. Losing him would be a life doomed to loneliness, because no man would ever compare. Her experience with Remus had spoiled her to all other wizards...

_Experience._

Her brain took a step backward, to the wisdom and experience that drew people to Remus. The first war had seen all his colleagues...friends...loved ones, all cut down much too young, like Cedric Diggory, in the Permanent Spell Damage ward, or dead, or rotting in Azkaban as a traitorous, murderous wretch. Who had borne _Remus_ up then? Dumbledore? Somehow, she couldn't envision Dumbledore doing for Remus what Remus did for Molly.

Not that it was any easier to envision Remus crying on anyone's shoulder, either.

What if he had to go through it again? What if this had happened tomorrow night, when she was on guard duty? Who would he turn to? Would he forgo secrecy and heed his own words about turning to the Order?

_What about one of his friends? What if something happened to Sirius? Or Dumbledore? He's close to Mad-Eye, if a person can really be close to Mad-Eye...He went to school with Kingsley, and they get on well; he speaks to Bill at every meeting, as much about Quidditch as goblins... _

Hell -- how did he feel right now, about what had happened to be Arthur? They'd got to be quite good friends, passing many an evening last summer, or after Order meetings, engrossed in endless Wizard's Chess matches.

_Will he turn to you? He did say _we_ bear each other up, as if he needed bearing up, too._

Tonks scrutinised his face, searching for signs of vulnerability. An emotion deeply etched his features; but it was all compassion for her.

_Is he just used to this? Or is he keeping his feelings inside because you're too green to lean on?_

Within her, something reared its head, resisting the thought almost violently. She sat up straight, and tugged at Remus' hands.

"I'm okay," she said firmly, maybe _too_ firmly, but she couldn't stand the thought of him not thinking he could turn to her if he had need. "Anyway, it's Molly who'll need bearing up, won't she?"

Remus looked at her for a moment with an unreadable expression, then nodded. She tugged at his hands, indicating for him to sit beside her. She drew a measure of reassurance from his fingers remaining locked with hers as they waited.

For how long they waited, she had no idea; time ceased to exist as her train of thought travelled on in an unbroken circuit.

At some point she dozed off, because the next thing she was fully aware of was Remus' hand releasing hers, and his shoulder shifting beneath her cheek, and her bleary eyes taking in the clock over the door reading 4:42 and Molly, emerging from the ward, supported by Hestia. At least, supported by Hestia until Remus stood and swiftly crossed the waiting room to her, and took over support duty. Tonks got to her feet as well, but clutched the arm rests of her chair in dreaded anticipation of what Molly, whose face was very pale, and her eyes rich, was going to say.

"Arthur's not going to...to..." Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, streaking down her cheeks as she looked up at Remus. "He'll live."

"Thank God," said Remus hoarsely, embracing her. "Thank God."

Tonks started to sink into her chair again, but before she could sit completely, Molly had disentangled herself from Remus' arms and was hugging her.

"And thank _you_, dear." Molly's wet cheek pressed against Tonks' as she kissed her. "You saved his life."

Over Molly's shoulder, Tonks saw Remus watching her, his eyes burning into her from a suddenly haggard face. From that moment, with the exception of the split-second of Apparition to Grimmauld, his gaze never left her face as they (minus Hestia, who had morning shift at St. Mungo's) made arrangements for Tonks to escort Molly and the kids to visit Arthur later in the day, after everyone had slept. There was a note of rawness in his voice that wasn't there normally, nor had been at any point during their stressful night and pre-dawn vigil. Not that he wasn't in possession of his usual authority, but it was almost as if it was somehow necessary for him to look at her in order to do what was needed of him.

_As if he needs strength, and finds it in you. _

She recognised him then, in the wan glow from her wand, the only light in the damp alley, as the Remus she'd seen two weeks ago, in the wake of the Oak Moon.

Vulnerable.

Needy, if not precisely open to her.

This was the look that had filled his eyes as he'd leant on her shoulder for help standing up right. Though she hadn't been aware of it till now, he'd been leaning on her during every moment of the long night, since he asked her to go to the Ministry to find Arthur.

When Remus offered to let Molly into Headquarters, she insisted that it was unnecessary for them to see her inside, that they both desperately needed to go somewhere quiet, like Tonks' flat. "And _sleep_," she said, significantly, before turning to go -- though Tonks wasn't sure whether Molly was being significant about actual sleep, or--

"It could have been _you_," Remus' voice broke, almost harshly, into her mulling.

Tonks blinked. His thoughts had been in the same place hers had, after all?

He stepped toward her, the soles of his shoes crunching on gravel and broken bits of beer bottles, sloshing through a puddle in the alley. And then his arms were around her, enveloping her in his worn wool coat. His cheekbone pressed into her shoulder blade as he leaned on her.

"I couldn't go on without you."

As if he'd uttered a spell to knock her off her feet, Tonks fisted his lapels in her hands, clinging to him. _He_ could not have said such a thing about _her_. She only believed he had because the words continued to whisper through her, touching her so, so gently at her very core.

"You could, though," she said, stroking his fine hair. "You always have."

He lifted his head, just slightly, and she made out his red-rimmed eyes through his fringe. "I wouldn't want to. There would be no colour in anything, compared to you. You are everything to me, do you know it? _Everything_."

His head had dropped against her shoulder again during the last, so that his words were barely more than a hot breath against the curve of her neck. They echoed so resonantly through her soul that she didn't doubt for a second that he'd actually spoken them. Celebration burst forth inside her, the jubilation she remembered, but had not understood, on the first of November, 1981. That she could be _that much_ to _this man_...It was more than she'd ever dared to be, more than she'd ever imagined she could be...God, and the way his lips were moving over her skin...

...her skin, which was so very cold, in contrast with his lips, exposed to the December pre-dawn chill because she'd forgotten to Conjure a cloak or scarf when she'd disguised herself. Remembering that she was yet morphed as the cleaning witch from the Ministry, wanting to feel his lips kissing her own collarbone, she morphed back into her natural form her slightly curvier figure filling out the Conjured work robe. Her hair, she changed to the vividest shade of his favourite pink that she could imagine.

Remus made a low sound in his throat as he tangled his fingers in the strands and continued to blaze his trail of kisses along her collarbone. Her body responded in kind, her hips pressing into his as she threaded her fingers into his hair and dragged his mouth to hers.

They kissed hungrily, everything they had been forced to hold back all night surging into the dam of restraint, shattering it utterly. Their breath, snatched in ragged gasps, formed a cocoon of steam around them in the cold air.

"I need you, Elphine," Remus murmured, lips not leaving hers, between kisses. His hands slid down over her hips and thighs, cupping her bottom, lifting her up onto the very tips of her toes. "Do you need me?"

She felt his physical need, of course, as she had so many times over the years; but for the first time, though she'd never doubted the love and intimacy operating at these moments, she sensed the emotional level of his need. And it ran far deeper than she'd thought it could, cutting her, almost, with its poignancy.

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she wrapped her legs around his thighs as he hoisted her off the ground. She pulled her mouth from his, and leant back in his arms just enough to look into his eyes. "I always need you."

His fingers were already working the buttons of her robes as the _crack_ of Disapparition split the quietude of the dawn.

* * *

_**A/N: Purgo Sceleratus: Purgo = to cleanse, to purify, to clear away, to wash off; to justify**_

_**Sceleratus = to pollute with guilt, blood, etc.**_

_**I offer a Remus to help you wait it out till the next chapter -- he'll hold your hand, let you sleep on his shoulder (though I hope the chapter hasn't made you want to snooze!) or maybe even take you out to the alley to break dams of restraint.**_


	6. What Was and Is and Is to Come

**5. What Was and Is and Is To Come**

"Can you morph three heads?"

Halfway to a Christmas tree branch with a winged pig ornament made of delicate, rose-coloured glass, Tonks spun around at the unexpected sound of Remus' voice behind her. Not because she hadn't been expecting him to turn up any minute at his New Forest cottage; not even because she hadn't heard the door do an imitation of a screech owl as it swung on its ancient hinges; but because she'd actually heard his soft, slightly hoarse tone over the _We Witch You A Merry Christmas_ programme blaring over the wireless.

For a second, a pig really did fly as the bauble slipped from Tonks' fingers.  
_As only you could manage, you clumsy great oaf, without even morphing all thumbs and no fingers._ Luckily for her, Remus had all the coordination she lacked, swept his arm out in front like he was part of a bloody ballet, and hooked the gold thread loop with his index finger.

"Shite, Remus! Why'd you sneak up on me like that? Were you _trying_ to make me shatter my favourite Christmas ornament into a million tiny pieces no _Reparo_ in the world, not even done by Molly Weasley, with the help of all the king's horses and all the king's men, could put back together again?"

Dangling the miniature flying pig in front of her face, Remus smirked. "Happy Christmas to you, too."

Tonks shot him a mock glare as she snatched her pig from the git and turned back to the tree. Over her shoulder, she said, "What the hell kind of question was that, anyway? Can I morph three heads?"

"That's what I asked," Remus replied cheerfully, pulling off his gloves and tossing them onto the coffee table, then setting to work on the buttons of his overcoat.

"Why do you want to know? Idle curiosity? Or is Dumbledore planning to send me undercover to recruit Order members from the Catriplus Mortalis tribe of Papua New Guinea?"

Remus grinned as he draped his coat over the back of a battered wing-backed chair. Tonks smiled back before turning to admire the way her pig ornament, which he'd had given her two Christmases ago, caught the fairy lights and shimmered. It almost looked as if it really were zipping about through the boughs of the Christmas tree.

"Actually," he said, the floorboards creaking beneath his feet as he ambled up behind her, "I just wondered how you managed to wear so many hats: Auror by day, Order member by night, Santa's Little Helper in between..."

He slipped his arms around her waist, bending to rest his chin on her shoulder. She squirmed, ticklish, when his lips brushed the sensitive spot where her jaw met her ear, and again when he chuckled softly into her neck, making the hairs on the back of her neck rise with a shiver.

"That's a fantastic idea about the Catriplus Mortali, though," he said. "Think how constantly vigilant three-headed Order members would be."

"Even Mad-Eye couldn't complain."

"Precisely. Who do we contact about them? _The Quibbler_?"

Tonks turned in his arms, pushing him slightly away from her as her hands flew to her hips in a playfully imposing stance. "That came right out of my own head, thank you very much, Mister Cleverer Than Thou."

Remus held up his hands, palms out, in a gesture of surrender, which he rather undermined by laughing and saying, "Have I ever told you that you're terribly cute when you're feisty?"

"Shall I try morphing two more heads for thrice the feistiness?"

"Would that be considered a ménage à trois?"

"Three heads plus one Remus equals ménage à _quatre_, last I checked."

Remus' eyebrow hitched upward. "You _checked_?"

With a shrug, Tonks _Summoned_ another bauble from the few remaining ones spread out on the coffee table. "I do have a little something planned for tonight." She darted her eyes sidelong at him -- suggestively, she hoped -- as she found a bare branch for the ornament.

"A little..." Remus' voice sounded a bit pinched, as if his collar were done up too tight. Which it wasn't. The top button was undone, revealing a tantalising bit of his slender neck, which Tonks made a mental note to spend a good deal of time kissing later. "A little..._morphing_...planned for tonight?"

Tonks bit her lip to suppress a giggle, but when she glanced at him again and saw that his eyes were wide and bright above pink cheeks, and that his fingers were squeezing the long hair at his nape, she didn't quite manage to keep the quaver out of her voice as she replied, "Yeah."

"Interesting," said Remus.

Tonks' eyes followed the trail of his Adam's apple down his throat.

"Right, well..." He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "Why don't you stick with your original plan, and save the ménage à quatre -- or trois, I'm not really particular -- for some other time?"

"Why?" Tonks flicked her wand and sent the remainder of the ornaments onto the tree; not all of them quite made it. Cringing, she continued with her original train of thought, although now with a degree amount of irony. "Cos you like what I do when left to my own devices?"

She expected Remus to laugh at her, to crack a joke as he cast a _Reparo_ on the broken baubles and then hung them delicately on the tree with one of his useful little spells. He did none of the above, but instead looked all around his shabby living room, which she'd decked out with Conjured red and green paper chains, and sprigs of holly clipped from the shrubs in the garden. _More like pricked your fingers within an inch of their lives!_

The room looked exactly like it had looked the previous two Christmases -- Tonks had seen to that, keen to hold as tightly to tradition as possible, even though Order duties had kept Remus from spending the day here with her, decorating together. If the look in his face, so _boyish_, every line on his face the result of his smile, then she'd got it just about right.

"I feel as if I've stepped into the Christmas issue of _Witch Weekly_," he said. "You've made the old place look really lovely."

"Flatterer," Tonks chided, though her grin stretched from ear to ear.

"No, really," he said. "We ought to take photographs and submit them to the magazine." He'd moved alongside the Christmas tree as he spoke, and now surreptitiously (or so he thought), held his wand at his side and flicked it to mend the shattered baubles. "And I love the jumper you approved for me."

Tonks noticed his clothes for the first time, a rich royal blue jumper that matched the colour of his eyes _exactly_, and somehow managed to make his old, threadbare trousers which barely qualified as brown anymore seem less tired.

But she couldn't tell him how handsome he looked, could she, when he was standing there like a total git with a half-smirk playing on his lips that told her he knew _exactly_ what she was thinking about him?

"Molly wasn't kidding about you swapping Ron for the maroon." She moved toward him and tugged at the voluminous knitted fabric bagging at his sides. "Bloody _two_ of Ron could fit in here -- with you!"

"Now, now." Remus caught her hands and gently prised them off of his clothing. "Let's steer clear of the realm of ménage á jumpers, shall we?"

Rolling her eyes, Tonks said, "I just don't want you thinking that jumper's an example of my taste. I approved the colour, but if Molly had asked me, I'd have told her to take it in a bit..." She slid her hands around him, gathering the excess jumper at the small of his back and pulling the hem up higher above his hips. "...show off your lovely trim waist...and your nice chest..."

"What about _your_ waist and chest, then?"

Tonks looked up at him. "What about them?"

Remus' hands re-enacted what she'd done earlier, tugging at the sides of her baggy jumper. "Molly made your Christmas jumper a bit oversized, as well. Or is that to accommodate you in case you decide you'd like to be a foot taller one day?"

"Or a foot shorter, so it can be a proper dress?" Tonks quipped, turning and waggling her posterior, clad in red and white leggings, stripy like peppermint sticks, which the white jumper, emblazoned with a great red T _(Not an N, thank Merlin! Molly must really like you.)_ didn't _quite_ cover. "Sweater dresses are right hip now, you know. It's the 90s, haven't you heard?"

"I think I did hear something about that, yes." Remus cocked his head to one side, and made a show of trailing his eyes up and down over the half of her body south of her waist. "That _right hip_ sweater dress might not show off your waist and chest, but you won't hear me complaining about what it does for your bottom and legs."

"Actually, that'd be the leggings," Tonks said, ceasing her wiggling and turning to face him again. "Which brings us back to your jumper."

"What about it?"

"Maybe I ought to have got you leggings for Christmas."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Now you've ruined the surprise. It would have been nice, when shaking my presents, to wonder, _Maybe Tonks has got me a pair of leggings to go with my new Molly Weasley jumper._" He shook his head ruefully as he bent to retrieve the Reparoed baubles from the floor and hang them carefully on the tree. "But now the possibilities are somewhat limited."

Tonks stared. "You are a very strange man."

"That is very true. Which means I know a strange woman when I see her, and you are very strange indeed for not considering the possibility that Molly made my jumper too large because she wanted to help you put Hestia off of me."

"Why would I need Molly's help?" Indignantly, Tonks snatched a bauble from Remus. "That's the fourth hat I wear, you know: Prankista Extraordinaire, the Perfect Match for a Marauder."

Remus watched her hang the ornament, eyeing the spot she'd chosen critically. "Does that mean you've thought of a prank, O Prankista Extraordinaire? Fantastic word coinage, by the way."

"Thanks. And yes -- I'm thinking a letter, since I'm very good at writing fake letters--"

"--you are, indeed."

"Only I'll need you to write it, cos I can't get my writing to look blokey."

"That sounds like a prank I might be persuaded to join in -- although it seems you're probably wanting this to be a love letter?"

"Secret admirer, requesting a tryst," Tonks explained. "I'll provide the words, all I need from you is the handwriting."

"All right," said Remus, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets and turning to face her. "Who's Hestia's secret admirer?"

"Snape."

"But you intend to misdirect her?"

Tonks nodded.

"Or rather -- _Remus_direct her?"

When Tonks nodded again, and saw Remus beginning to waver, she stepped into him, and pressed her hands against his chest, curling her fingers over the fabric of his jumper. "_Please_, Remus? I know you can't resist a chance to get a rise out of Snape."

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't." Sliding her hands up over the gentle rise of his chest, Tonks rose up on his toes and kissed his throat. "Not any more than you can resist kissing me after I've kissed you right there."

Even as Remus dipped his head to meet her lips with his, he murmured, "You've just linked yourself to _Severus Snape_ with the term _irresistible_."

Between kisses, Tonks replied, "I think that's the least horrifying of all the horrifying things that have been said since you got here."

"Which is highly disturbing..."

His words trailed away as his lips melted into hers. His hands had been resting on her hips, but now one slid round to her back, gliding down over her bottom briefly before his fingers found the hem of her jumper, slipped inside, and skirted up again over her back, warming her with his touch. When his fingers brushed over the edges of her shoulder blades, he drew in a sharp breath against Tonks' lips, which had curled upward in a smile.

She wasn't wearing a bra.

Tightening his arm around her, his other hand, still outside her jumper, slid between their bodies, curving lightly over her breast. Tonks gave a little moan, and Remus responded with a low sound of his own before pulling his mouth from hers. He trailed soft, nibbling kisses over her cheekbone as he rubbed his slightly prickly cheek against hers.

"Let's forget about Snape and Hestia," he said, huskily in her ear, "and anyone who isn't you or me..."

"Good idea." Tonks turned her head so that she could kiss his jaw...or some part of his face. With his hand in her shirt like that, brushing the side of her breast, it was hard to be sure of what, exactly, she was doing.

"...and you can show me that morphing thing you've got planned, since I thought it sounded rather more sexy than horrifying."

Tonks leaned back against his thankfully firm, steady arm around her waist to look him in the eyes -- which she was delighted to see had gone hazy grey-blue -- and raised an eyebrow at him.

"What makes you so sure?"

For just a second, Remus' eyebrows pressed together, forehead dimpling in between, in a look of confusion that was absolutely adorable because Remus seldom missed a train of thought. Then, eyes brightening as the lusty look cleared slightly, he said, "I told you already."

Now it was Tonks who looked confused, and she hoped Remus thought it was endearing as she'd found the look on his face, rather than that she was a tad naïve or worse, slow. "Told me what?"

"That I like what you do when left to your own devices." His hand drifted from her breast, skimming her chest and neck, to cup her face, fingers raking back into her hair. "Even if you did morph three heads, if they all looked like yours, you'd still be dead sexy."

"Do you really want to test me on that?"

Eyes gleaming mischievously, he said, "I must confess a burning curiosity to know if you could give each one a different hair colour."

_Don't you dare admit it now he's gone on about it, but you've got a flicker of interest yourself to know if you could do it. He might say he'd like to know, but no man really wants to see his girlfriend do her best imitation of Cerberus._

Forcing herself to step back from him, slipping out of the cradle of his arms, Tonks flicked her hair over her shoulder and said, "It's a good job you're not a cat, cos you're just going to have to stay curious a while longer. Right now we've got traditions to see to."

She pointed her wand at the sitting room doorway where, directly opposite across the narrow corridor with the even narrower staircase that led to the bedrooms, the kitchen glowed with lamplight.

"_Accio sausage rolls_. What?" She narrowly avoided spilling the lot of them when she caught the tarnished silver tray she'd arranged them on off-balance, distracted by a peculiar, lopsided grin flashing on Remus' face. "Don't tell me you've suddenly gone and decided sausage rolls aren't a proper supper."

They always ate sausage rolls whilst on holiday here, since that first Christmas when Remus had insisted they stop at the Rose and Crown in Brockenhurst for the best sausage rolls she would ever sample. Not to mention it spared either of them having to attempt cooking supper on Christmas Eve or breakfast the following morning, as the sausage rolls were just as delicious warmed up and convenient to munch on as they opened pressies.

Despite Remus' claims of their delectableness, Tonks had spent a good part of that first Christmas Eve together refusing to try one, convinced he was taking the mickey out of her about her Patronus, which she'd shown him when he mentioned the new term bringing private Defence lessons with Harry Potter. Of course he _had_ been teasing her -- as a series of pig-themed gifts followed. But he hadn't been kidding about these being the best damn sausage rolls she'd ever had.

Looking almost offended at her suggestion, Remus said, "When pigs fly!" then Summoned his coat from the back of the arm chair, delved into the pocket, and drew out a slightly greasy paper sack. "Only I thought since you were Flooing here, you mightn't bother going down up to the village, so I popped in myself."

Tonks laughed. "Too bad this isn't Christmas Eve -- then we'd have enough for Christmas dinner, as well, and wouldn't have to venture out to the village for lunch."

Remus chuckled quietly, but Tonks noticed, as they curled up on the sofa together, his arm stretched along the back of the settee behind her and the tray of sausage rolls balanced on his knee, that his smile was laced with regret as he looked around the living room again. "I'm sorry we couldn't manage to make it down last night, and that I couldn't be a part of all our traditions today."

"I missed you," Tonks admitted, snuggling closer into the crook of his arm and resting her head on his shoulder, "but I'm just glad we were able to get some time together on Christmas Day at all."

She felt his lips brush the top of her head as she popped a sausage roll into her mouth.

"It's quite a Christmas miracle, really," she went on when she'd swallowed, "that I got the day off and Dumbledore didn't have you Apparating all over Britain after everything that's happened this week."

They'd been up to their ears since the attack on Arthur: Remus tracking down every lead, no matter how small or unlikely, about Voldemort's whereabouts; she working to implement new security measures at the Ministry, not to mention a bit of hairy work with Emmeline Vance, an Obliviator, to implant the real Eugenia Scrubb's memory with an altered version of her own of finding Arthur bleeding in a lift, calling for help, and the ensuing interview with Amos Diggory. Tonks was glad to be able to serve the Order of the Phoenix with her unique skill set, but _bloody Merlin's beard!_ -- that sort of undercover work made her brain want to explode.

"That's very true," said Remus, but with a tightness in his voice, even as his fingertips stroked her shoulder, that told Tonks he wasn't completely reassured that she didn't mind -- or was willing to deal with, at any rate -- the Order coming before them.

"I managed the decorating," Tonks said, "and I'm sure Molly and the kids couldn't have got along without you."

"Percy sent back his jumper."

A shock of pain gripped Tonks' heart, which she immediately shoved aside because she didn't want to think about sad things like broken families tonight -- but not before she vowed to do something nice for Molly, and be sure to wear her Weasley jumper often, around Molly and to work, too. Maybe Remus knew a useful little spell could put on it that would make Percy's conscience -- if the miserable little prick had even had one -- well, literally _prick_.

"How's Arthur?" she asked.

"Still bleeding, though he didn't help himself by letting a trainee healer try Muggle medicine on him. Which I suppose is a very good sign that he's feeling like himself again."

"How do Muggles stop bleeding?" Tonks asked, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him.

Remus, having just reached for a sausage roll, looked a little peaky and replaced it on the tray. "They sew the wound together. With a needle and thread."

Tonks' mouth fell open, and she barely overcame her shock enough to stop a bit of sausage roll falling out. She choked a little when she swallowed it too hard. "Blimey! Is he okay?"

"I think the scolding he got from Molly was worse."

"I'll bet you had your work cut out for you, getting her calmed down."

Remus looked away, fringe falling over his forehead, and grinned sheepishly. "Not at all. I, like everyone else, tactfully walked away..."

She could just picture Remus shoving his hands in his pockets and turning away, hiding a half-embarrassed, half-amused look as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley began to row. "Decided it was the perfect time to stroll across the ward and speak to that bloke...?"

Tonks topped short of saying, _that bloke who was turned into a werewolf_ or even _that bloke who was bitten_, and hoped, for once, that Remus was reading her mind and knew who she meant.

_You're as bad as Molly Weasley, Tonks, knowing a werewolf yourself, and yet still being afraid of all the other ones. Worse, even, because you know Remus better than anyone. You've seen him as a werewolf. You've seen him after transformation, weak and ravaged. Yet you still don't really believe it._

Remus nodded, then, with rather suspect timing, ate a sausage roll. Tonks gave him the benefit of the doubt as he chewed. After he swallowed she waited another moment for him to say more, to tell her about his conversation with the man. But he said nothing; instead, he looked at her with one eyebrow slightly raised, as if to ask why she was looking at him with expectation.

Though Tonks had seen this look often enough to know it meant Remus was not inviting her to pursue a topic further, she asked, "Good chat?" For Molly, despite her reservations about a werewolf sleeping just a few yards from her husband, had enough compassion to tell Tonks what Arthur had said to the unfortunate man about knowing a werewolf who found his condition quite easy to manage, and thought Remus might like to encourage him, possibly recruit him for the Order of the Phoenix.

Tonks had latched onto the bit about manageability, even though she was experienced enough to know there was nothing _easy_ about it. In light of how far they'd come lately, with him opening up to her a little more about his condition, and the dependency on her he'd displayed the night Arthur was attacked, she'd harboured an image of Remus sitting down beside that bloke's bed and telling him that becoming a werewolf wasn't the end of the world, that there were who didn't care what you turned into one night a month, and that _he_ had a girlfriend he was very much in love with, who wanted to be with him no matter what, who gave him something to fight for, the hope of a future...

"I think he does not quite believe," Remus' voice rasped quietly into her daydream, "much less comprehend..."

His face was drawn, and his eyes seemed to be looking someplace far away -- maybe even deep within himself, Tonks thought, out of nowhere, and felt a little frightened.

_He didn't open up to you as much as you thought. He's still holding back--_

No! He's not! Have a little faith!

But Remus gave his head a little shake, and he sat up straighter, squeezed her shoulder, as if he were shrugging off a stupor.

"I'm sorry," he said, with an apologetic smile. "This isn't very merry Christmas talk, and I haven't asked about your day. How were your family?"

_Of course he couldn't say all that,_ Tonks told herself firmly, as though Banishing the deep disappointment that tried to clutch hold of her heart. _He was all over the Prophet after he resigned from Hogwarts. That bloke might have recognised. Your cover would've been blown. He was protecting you._

And don't you dare go there! You may not think you need protection, but you're protective of him, too. Whose name were you biting your tongue not to say during Christmas lunch at your parents'?

"They were...my family," Tonks told him. "Mum kept asking when I was ever going to bring a bloke home of Christmas. Dad said I'm not allowed to bring a bloke home at any time till I'm thirty-five." Forcing jokiness into her voice, she added, "I wanted to ask if going home to a thirty-five-year-old bloke was enough of a compromise."

Remus smiled, and Tonks caught her breath. Had he caught that word: _home_? Did he have any inkling that when she heard "I'll Be Home For Christmas" playing in the shops as she bought his presents, that the image that rose to her mind was of Remus' family cottage nestled in the New Forest, not her parents' house in the London suburbs? Had it occurred to him that she might like this to be her home for always, not just for holidays?

There was an awful panic-filled moment of fearing he did know, and didn't like it, when he broke eye contact with her to move the tray of sausage rolls onto the coffee table. But then her heart caught in her throat and pounded furiously as he turned back to her, eyes deeper blue, smile a little softer, a little more tenderly, and shifted closer to her, cupping her face in his palm.

"I'm glad you came home to a thirty-five-year-old bloke, too," he said, and leaned into her for a kiss. "Merry Christmas, Elphine..."

Her own _Merry Christmas_ was reduced to a sighed _mmmm_ as their lips touched, but she felt Remus smile as he kissed her, as well as the soft laughter rumbling in his throat, and knew he'd got the message and was having a very merry Christmas, indeed.

_A merry little Christmas_, she amended, noticing a sultry alto crooning the very words over the wireless.

_...Let your heart be light  
From now on  
Our troubles will be out of sight..._

No effort was required on Tonks' part to let her heart be light as Remus' lips moved over hers. The only things in her sight were Remus' thumb moving lightly back and forth over her cheek; his light blond eyelashes closed against his pale skin; the Christmas tree, over his shoulder, twinkling with fairy lights which seemed determined to outshine the roaring fire and bathe the cottage in a brilliant, shimmering golden glow. The shabby sitting room, she thought, with its peeling whitewashed walls and faded upholstery looked richer for its lived-in hominess than she imagined mouldy Grimmauld Place ever could have done, even in its glory days, before its mistress had wasted away with her own bitterness which lingered yet and gnawed bit by bit on the fragile soul of the new master of the house.

Yet, as the meeting and parting of her lips with Remus', the ebb and flow of the kiss buoyed her ever higher, as if on a rising tide, not even that grim turn of thought could pull her spirit into the undertow of reality. It was Christmas Day in the House of Black, as well as here, and Sirius had changed this week, with Harry's advent. He had his godson, and a house full of Weasleys who had been blessed with the Christmas miracle of _life_.

And she herself had somehow managed not to be slated for duty of any kind for _two_ days. Yes, she was on call both days, but so far, so good; in the light of the Christmas tree, with a song swirling through the cottage, snaking into her soul and, not least of all, with Remus kissing her unhurriedly, without any indication either of soon stopping or taking them to the next level, his hands touching her face in a way that was wholly different to the last time they'd managed to be alone together -- when he'd clutched her to him with trembling hands and shuddering body as if he were terrified it might be the last time -- it seemed impossible that the trouble that had lately been always at their heels, could be anywhere other than miles and miles away from them.

_Bit closer than that, Tonks, and you know it,_ whispered her annoying inner voice. _The reason his eyelashes are standing out so much right now is because there's purplish circles beginning under his eyes. It's only a week till full moon. The best Christmas present he could have would be a week's dose of Wolfsbane Potion._

In an act of rebellion against the voice she really didn't want to hear right now, she caught Remus' face in her hands and kissed him more intently, raking her teeth over his lower lip in the way he liked, which coaxed a low sound of approval and a little more passion from him in return. The waxing moon could not be touching him yet; the hints of fatigue were just the residue of his daily battle to keep Sirius from unravelling like the family tapestry and from being Molly Weasley's rock in the midst of all his Order duties, all of which had carried on in a month that had been ushered in by the cruel Oak Moon. As the song said, the past was past, and the future far away. But

_Christmas present is here today  
Bringing joy that may last_

Without doubt, joy was the emotion that bubbled up inside her as her fingers slid back into his hair, the soft strands sliding between them before they laced together behind his neck. When Remus' lips moved against hers not to kiss her, but to say, "Here you are," as he helped her situate her legs around his waist, she realised she'd moved onto his lap.

Yes, here she was, here they were

_...as in olden days,  
Happy golden days of yore..._

It seemed strange that she'd spent only a handful of days here, with Remus, in his home, because all of them had been the sort of days that would never fade from her memory, no matter how many days... months... years were in store for her. Remus' home, and his arms around her in it, had come to be a shelter to her as much as the old air raid shelter in the back garden.

When she'd doubted her capacity to make it through her third year of training and qualify for Auror, she had only to look back on that first Christmas with him, when she'd trusted Remus so completely to guide her across that final threshold from girlhood into womanhood, and know that she could believe that man when he said she was more than able.

When things had gone pear-shaped for them the year after, forcing them to hide, their second Christmas here had represented freedom from the lies she told day in and day out. When she worried that the months of unemployment, the loss of civil rights, and the injustice of his best mate's fugitive status, would be too much for Remus, she remembered how he had made even merrier the Christmas after his resignation from Hogwarts than he had the year he'd worked there.

Next year, she hoped, leaning further into him as yearning ripped through her for a deeper kiss, which he sensed and obliged her with, she would look back upon this Christmas as a golden refuge in the midst of the ever-encroaching darkness. And if everything played out as she'd begun to dream it would, then this Christmas would promise every Christmas after, and would hang as a shining star upon the highest bough.

_...And have yourself a merry little Christmas now._

Yes -- _now_. She couldn't wait any longer. Though Remus' hands were on her hips, pressing them down into his, leaving her in no doubt of what would give _him_ a merry little Christmas right now, she gave him one quick, unquestioningly last, kiss, then pulled away.

"I want to open my pressies."

Remus opened his eyes slowly, and looked a bit bewildered. Which she reckoned was completely natural for a bloke who'd clearly been expecting this to lead to Merry Christmas sex.

You ought to have kept going with that, Tonks. He's not thinking the same as you, that your Merry Christmas sex ought to do double duty as celebration sex.

Wasn't he, though? He'd been kissing her at leisure, without a real sense of direction, till she had got carried away by the romance of the setting and her own daydreams and kicked things up a notch.

But if he was thinking the same as you, wouldn't he be taking the lead, guiding you toward a grand scheme of his? Only he always assumes the traditional male roles, which you're more than willing to let him do, and nothing tonight's been like Remus with a plan. Remember how carefully he plotted things out the first time he brought you here?

The first time he brought you here, Tonks argued with herself, he wasn't doing Order duty.

No, but he was working a full-time teaching job, planning private lessons with Harry, and wringing his hands what to do with that information about Sirius being an Animagus--

Remus leant into her suddenly, and kissed the tip of her nose. When he drew back, he wore his lopsided boyish grin and his customary expression that was at once alert and relaxed. "Presents sound like a very fine idea."

"I think so," Tonks said, disengaging her arms from around his neck and placing her hands on the sofa cushions to scoot back from his lap -- but Remus' hands kept hold of her hips, and his gleaming eyes held hers.

"Mainly because then we get to thank each other for our gifts."

Tonks couldn't help giggling as she inwardly crowed, You see? He's got a plan -- and a present guaranteed to result in Merry Christmas-thank you-celebration sex.

"Talking of presents," said Remus as they got up from the sofa, "the model Firebolt you got Harry was a smashing success."

"Thank Merlin," said Tonks as she tossed a couple of cushions onto the floor by the Christmas tree so that they could recline comfortably, or lean against the stone hearth. "I couldn't think of anything better, but I was afraid it might make him feel like a prat about being kicked off the team."

"Not at all." Remus fished in his coat pocket, took out a few miniature gifts wrapped in shiny foil paper, then enlarged them. "In fact, Fred and George complained very loudly that you overlooked them--"

"I sent them notes that I wanted to be a shareholder in their sodding joke shop when they get it off the ground!"

"--before deciding to put your investment toward a product line called Common Room Quidditch -- So You Don't Feel Like a Prat For Not Making Your House Team."

Tonks threw back her head and laughed -- and very nearly threw herself on the floor as she'd chosen that moment to plop down on the hearthrug and was thrown off-balance. "Now _there's_ an appropriate product line for me to have financed!"

"Of course," said Remus, striding across the room bearing three gifts -- one of them quite small, and exactly the shape to make her heart leap, and quicken, as her breath became shallow, which left her feeling a little light-headed, "being a complete gentleman, I made no comment of the sort."

"Not even for cover," Tonks teased, "so no one'll suspect we're secret lovers?"

Remus rolled his eyes as he bent to arrange her gifts under the tree among his -- of which there were also three, which pleased Tonks immensely, having anticipated what he would be able to do for her on his limited funds.

Since Remus' resignation, presents had been a touchy subject -- for her, at least. Beyond a simple, _I'm sorry it's not up to last year's standard_ the Christmas before this, to which she'd responded, _Not at all_, Remus had never given any indication whatsoever that his lack of income created any real dilemma for him at gift-giving times. He seemed quite pleased with his offerings, which, if thriftier (certainly in comparison to the oddly exquisite pig broach, done in pink garnets, which she suspected he'd had custom made for her), had been just as heartfelt as the year before. Maybe even more so, as they included the extra personal touch of his creativity and imagination. Like the pink ceramic piggy bank, hand-painted with flowers and flourishes in a rainbow of colours -- hand-painted by _him_ because, _The one I modelled it after was a very plain blue pattern on a white background, and not nearly enough colour to represent the Patronus of Nymphadora Tonks._ Which had earned him a, _Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus!_ and some very nice thank-you sex, if she did say so herself.

It had always been at the back of her mind, though, that Remus might have been compelled to copy a knick-knack he'd seen in a shop because it had been beyond his means. She wondered, too, if deep down, though his mild expression never remotely gave him away, it troubled Remus that the loss of his job meant a comedown -- not that she saw it that way -- in their relationship, as well. Only she couldn't forget the look of sheer delight on his face as he'd watched her open gift after gift that first Christmas. It had given her the most adorable image of him browsing the shelves of every shop in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley, plonking down Galleons for whatever item struck him as _her_, and returning to his rooms at the school with his pockets stuffed with parcels and later spreading them out on his desk to wrap, looking right chuffed with himself.

_None of which you fully appreciated till he made that apology, and you suddenly realised you were faced with the dilemma of how in bloody hell to buy **him** gifts that didn't show him up, or make him feel like you were offering him handouts._

Granted, he'd made it a little easier on her by starting the tradition of her Runic charm bracelet, though she almost would rather he wouldn't have, as he could ill-afford it. But of course she couldn't _say_ that, without wounding his pride. Which she refused to do, because it was one of the only things he had left, and she intended to see to it remain intact, whatever the cost.

Realising she might have done something not far off from that by going on about her gifts to Harry and the twins, she blurted, "What did Harry think of the Defence books you gave him?"

"Well..." Remus, apparently satisfied with the arrangement of the gifts, lowered himself to the floor, stretching out on his side, facing her, with one elbow on a cushion and his head on his hand, "_I_ must confess to having also harboured a measure of insecurity that Harry would feel a prat for being given schoolbooks for Christmas instead of something cool like a working model Firebolt--"

"The books were Sirius' idea!"

"Actually, he suggested private lessons in the Shrieking Shack because of the risk and Ultimate Umbridge Annoyance factors--"

"But they're bloody _cool_ books!"

Smiling, Remus reached for her hand, which rested on her knee. "My doubts were put to rest when Harry, in typical fifteen-year-old male fashion, blushed profusely, looked at Sirius and me without really meeting our eyes, and muttering something that could have been Gobbledegook, but I think must have been _Wow, thanks a lot, Professor Lupin._"

He squeezed her hand, then sat up. "But I think that's enough of talking about other people's gifts, isn't it?"

"Quite," said Tonks, her heart pounding again from anticipation, rather than awkward embarrassment.

At least until she blurted, "Me first!" and Remus looked at her with raised eyebrows and an inquiring half-smile, and she went felt her face burn Weasley red.

"Someone's eager," he said, twisting to reach for a thin, perfectly flat package, which if she were to guess what it was, she'd have to say a calendar -- only she knew Remus would never give her something as dull as a calendar, or if he did, it would be a pretty bloody fantastic one. But as his gaze flicked from hers to it, Tonks saw a flash of something that might have been doubt.

_Or you might just think you see doubt because you were just thinking that he ought to experience doubt. Bit hypocritical for someone hell-bent on giving him his pride, don't you think?_

There was nothing for it but to suck up her embarrassment and let Remus see just how enthusiastic she was about Christmas with him.

"Course I am," she said. "Remus pressies are always so great that I've wondered if there was a Great Gifts class at Hogwarts in the '70s that you got an O in."

Whatever she'd seen -- or thought she'd seen -- in Remus' eyes had completely vanished -- if it had ever been there at all -- as he chuckled. "They removed it from the curriculum after I left school, because they didn't think it was fair to expect students to live up to the shining example I'd set."

"Also, I'm just rushing to the front of the line because we've got an even number of presents between us--"

"I only see five, and last I checked, it was an odd--"

"Trust me, _git_, there are six, and yours has got to be the very last thing."

"Has it now? How very intriguing." Remus handed over her present. "You'd best get on with that, then, or else you might find that curiosity is just as lethal to werewolves as it is to cats."

"Can't be having that."

Tonks ripped into the stripy silver and gold paper, and found not a calendar, but a plastic film-wrapped cardboard packet of what appeared to be faintly greenish stars in a variety of sizes. The stars delighted her in and of themselves -- though Remus had been forced to cut back, her Christmas gifts always included something star-themed in honour of the stars-spangled Wellies she'd been wearing the first time they met; Remus had given her everything from star jewellery to bags to scarves, even a pair of star-shaped sunglasses -- but...

"What are they?" she asked.

Remus pointed to the packaging. "Glow Stars."

"Well, of course I read that."

Remus explained how Fred and George had found them in a Muggle novelty shop, and were considering them, among other a few other Muggle items, for their own joke shop. "I thought they looked interesting," he said, "and since I believe I have quite possibly exhausted star fashion accessories, I bought these off of the twins."

Tonks looked at her gift with new interest. "They're Muggle magic, then?"

"Sort of," said Remus. "You stick them to your ceiling, and when it's dark, they glow."

Tonks gaped at him, then at the Glow Stars. "Blimey! They do that without Spellotape or Lumos Charms?"

Scooting to sit close beside her, Remus slipped one arm behind her, palm on the floor at the base of her spine, and turned the package over in her lap. "It says something about the stars absorbing artificial light or even daylight, but I can't quite work it out. You might ask your dad if he knows anything about it."

"I think it might spoil the magic to know how it works," said Tonks. "Unless you really are worried about curiosity killing the werewolf?"

Remus grinned. "I know real stars haven't five tidy points, but I thought it might be a fun Boxing Day project to arrange them in constellations."

He'd spoken very softly, his breath ruffling her fringe as his fingers trailed over her sleeve. His eyes held a look that told Tonks Remus hadn't _thought_ so much as hoped they would spend their Boxing Day mapping out the heavens on the ceiling. He'd imagined them doing it.

_Here._

Making a permanent mark on his house.

Together.

_Hang a shining star upon the highest bough..._

It would say that this cottage was _their_ house. Written in the stars.

To stop herself acting on the rush of excitement that pulsed from her heart and all through her, making her fingertips tingle to tear open the rest of her presents _now_, and to declare to Remus what he had not yet asked, she nudged the crook of his arm with her shoulder and said, "You're such a swot, Remus."

His sandy brows arched. "Remind me, Nymphadora -- how many NEWTs do you have again, and in which subjects?"

Scowling, Tonks told him not to call her Nymphadora lest she _Reducto_ all his gifts. Though as she said this whilst Summoning one of his onto his lap (dropping it a bit too hard, not intentionally) his apologies seemed largely unrepentant.

"I think you'll find we're perfectly matched in swottiness," she told him as he slipped his index finger under one Spellotaped edge of the green paper. "Even if I am a totally kick-arse Auror."

"Only I don't think any self-respecting swot would purchase _The Kappa of Kent_ as a show of swottiness," Remus replied as the gift wrap fell away from a hardcover book with a vibrantly illustrated jacket, from which the huge, monkey eyes of a kappa glowed up from a pond.

Tonks snorted. "Please. Don't even try to pretend you didn't put a little star by the book review in the _Prophet_ -- which was quite favourable, I recall, meaning you meant to take a look at the library. I know you secretly like the _Creature Capers_ series for more than just pointing out their scientific inaccuracies." Not to mention he was running his fingers over the cover, thumbing through it, inhaling the new book scent.

"It's true," he said, ducking his head slightly, sheepishness tingeing his grin. "I've been reading them since I was...I don't know, five? Arabella Figg's husband was subscribed to the series and would lend them to me when he was finished -- then tell me to keep them till he wanted to read them again, which he never did. Do you know there are one hundred and ten in the series? This brings my collection up to date, thank you. I'd been holding out for it to show up in Flourish and Blott's second-hand bin, but had begun to despair that it ever would."

She'd had no idea of Remus' history with the books, and was gladder than ever that she'd noticed his mark in the paper all those months ago when the book had been released. And though she knew he would have been perfectly content with a second-hand copy, she was really glad he got to add a brand new volume to his collection. He deserved it.

"Maybe you can read it to me under the light of my new Glow Stars," she said.

"I think that would create just the right ambiance for the tale of..." He cleared his throat and read from the jacket liner, "...a Muggle family that discovers a mysterious creature in their koi pond, which leads them to a whole new world they never knew existed right before their eyes."

Next Tonks opened a set of wooden coat hangers painted in lime greens and magentas and sunshine yellows, with pink pigs hugging the wire hangers. Remus showed her how they were charmed to detect whenever an article of clothing was discarded anywhere other than on the hanger, and to oink and grunt, _If you can see where your clothes lie, you're living in a pigsty!_ Which would have annoyed her if it had been from her mum, but because it was pigs, and from Remus, it instead amused her to no end. Especially as her second gift to him was an expandable file, such as they used in the Auror office to replace his currently very appalling system, even to her, of stacks of parchment on every free surface of his bedroom. It had a roving eye, like Mad-Eye's, which saw when a paper was not filed and shouted a department catchphrase that had tormented her during her first year on the squad: _Constant vigilance applies to parchments!_ The file also bewitched things sorted into the Personal Secrets folder to look like Famous Wizard cards to anyone but the person who had filed them; _Professional Secrets_ became issues of _The Quibbler_; and _Top Secret_ files self-destructed if they fell into any hands but those designated by the filer as the right ones.

"It seems we each have a desire to see the other be a little more organised," said Remus, though he looked thrilled with the file and impressed by her spellwork.

"Rather a case of the blind leading the blind, isn't it?"

"Maybe, but I think we compliment each other quite nicely." Remus leant in to peck her lips. "At least we're both guaranteed a forgiving partner, if not one to keep us on the straight and narrow path to organisation."

His words about partnership alone had been enough to send Tonks heart into a frantic tempo and make her palms sweat, but he'd also pressed the last, small gift into her hands as he'd spoken.

_Small in size, but when it comes to meaning, it's the biggest, by far._

Her hands trembled so that it was difficult to break the Spellotape loose from the corner and pull the paper away. She'd never been so nervous in her life, not even the day of her Auror qualification examinations; unlike then, these nerves were borne from anticipation of what a monumental turn her life was about to take, rather than of doubt. Just as she had anticipated, she unwrapped a red velvet jewellery case. Smiling, she glanced up at Remus and saw him watching her with his usual calm, relaxed expression.

_He ought to be showing at least a little nervousness at a moment like this, oughtn't he, Tonks? Bit unnatural of him to be so bloody calm. _

Pulling away the last of the gift wrap from the box, Tonks sat still for a moment, wadding the paper into a ball. _Was_ it unnatural for Remus to stand calmly at this threshold? He knew how much she loved him; if he'd been in any doubt, his confession last week of needing her, and her ready response to him, ought to have laid fear to rest.

Don't be a stupid prat! she told herself. _Smooth is Remus' middle name -- well, his _other_ middle name. If any wizard were capable of being cool and confident at a moment like this, it'd be Remus. It's his style. Completely natural._

With that, she flashed him a wide grin (which he returned, though not quite as broadly, and with his gaze flickering down to the jewellery box) and flipped open the lid.

Her breath caught.

Her heart thudded, once, then hung suspended, huge and heavy, in her chest.

Her stomach coiled itself into a thick and sickening knot.

She hadn't expected an engagement ring.

She'd known it would be a new rune charm for her bracelet.

She'd just been so sure it would be Othila, Rune of Home, Hearth, and Family -- not Mannaz, Rune of Humanity.

_Now don't give up just yet. You've got an Ancient Runes NEWT, so you know that whilst Mannaz represents the creativity and intelligence that carry human individuals through the difficult journey of life, it also represents shared experience...partnership. It's a beautiful meaning, and could just as easily be the one Remus would choose to pop the question to you. _

"I was uncertain which Rune to give you this Christmas," his rasping voice spoke softly over her inner pep-talk, "till last week, when Arthur was attacked."

_You see? He needs you. He told you that. He'll say it again -- and this time, he'll drop down on one knee and tell you he needs you to be his wife. _

He took the Rune from its tiny silk pillow and used his wand to affix it to a silver link of her bracelet. After he had done, he made no move to kneel, but Tonks held out hope as he took her hand in his and looked into her eyes.

"You're a member of the Order of the Phoenix, Elphine," he said. "The battles we fight together, the trust we have in one another...It's an experience so few people have in this life. I wanted you to have a symbol of the Order on your charm bracelet, because the Order will, undoubtedly, shape you, and change you. It already has done. I am so proud of you, and so honoured, to stand up beside you against Voldemort. And I am so humbled to have your love."

Remus' speech, apparently, worked precisely like a _Solvo_ spell, unbinding the knot her stomach had tied itself into. Her heart began to pulse again; her lungs drew deeply of the air. He had not proposed marriage, had not even uttered the word or any of the related words. He _had_, however, talked of trust, and togetherness, and _their_ love. How could that disappoint?

She sure as hell wasn't going to _let_ it disappoint.

"I do love you," she murmured, leaning into him for a deep, but quick kiss. "I've got one more present for you--"

Remus started to turn his head to look under the tree, where no more gifts lay, but Tonks caught his face and kept his eyes on hers.

"--only you've got to let me go upstairs for five minutes before you come up and open it. Okay?"

"Okay," said Remus, drawing the word out, pitched high at the end in a slight question. "But only because I'm sure it would take a good deal longer than five minutes for a werewolf to die of curiosity, and I've got _The Kappa of Kent_ to pass the time."

In the bedroom, Tonks quickly shed every stitch of her clothing, utilising her new pig hangers for her jumper and jeans, and stowed them, in the wardrobe, chucking everything else in after it, not very tidily. Not a bright start to the organised leaf she was supposed to turn over, but maybe it would make a better New Year's resolution. Right now, she simply couldn't be bothered. If she was going to finish this morph before the five minutes were up and Remus joined her, she needed every second she could spare.

Standing far enough across the room that she could see her entire body in the full-length wardrobe mirror, Tonks surveyed her completely nude form (except for the charm bracelet on her wrist, which she never took off) and drew several slow, deep breaths to steady herself. She'd never done anything like this before. Well -- she'd practiced, of course, in the bathroom of her flat, when Des wasn't home, to be sure she could do it without taking an age. But she'd never morphed for Remus as part of their foreplay.

On principle, she found the notion of being anything but herself during such an intimate act absolutely abhorrent; and Remus had never once caused her to fear what had always held her back from going very far with a bloke, that he saw her as potential to fulfil his every fantasy. Tonight she planned to remain fully herself, making a change that only went, quite literally, skin deep. Yet she wondered just what Remus' reaction would be when he stepped through that door and saw what she'd done. Would he like it?

She felt exactly as she had the first time she'd stood here, minutes before they'd made love for the first time -- she for the first time ever -- two years earlier.

_They hadn't been kissing long before Remus' lips on hers made her feel as if her insides were aglow like the fairy lights on the Christmas tree, as if the blood was burning and crackling as it pulsed through her veins like the fire blazing in the grate. His hand had slipped beneath the hem of the sweatshirt and settled, gently curved, over her breast. The tip of one of his long fingers traced the edge of her bra, working a magic that at once warmed her and made her shiver, prickling up gooseflesh in his finger's path._

Tonks' own hands were buried in his hair, which shifted silver and gold in the flickering light. She let the long, soft threads slide between her fingers till she reached the ends, at his shoulders, then slipped one hand inside his collar. His skin was so warm...

As she drew him toward her, pressing her mouth harder against his until their lips seemed to melt into one another, Remus' hand slid from her breast round to her back. For a moment his fingers dallied at the closure of her bra, either struggling with a half-hearted attempt to undo it, or undecided about whether he ought to. She didn't mind if he did -- wanted him to, even; but just as she withdrew her hand from his collar, intending to reach around and assist him, his hand drifted away from her bra, down to the small of her back where the other had been resting all along.

He didn't stop there, but allowed his palm to skim over the waistband of her jeans, past her hips to the curve of her bottom. Tonks pushed herself slightly off the floor as she felt the pressure of his slim fingers slipping between her and the hearthrug, lifting her level with his lap as his hand on her back pulled her in to him. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist, and squeezed her knees against his sides, loving the feel of his body touching so much of hers, even if there was a layer of clothing separating them. Apparently he did, too -- assuming that was what that low sound he made, which vibrated all through her, meant.

Liking the sound of him as much as the feel of him, Tonks tested it by applying the pressure of her legs again.

She didn't mean to push her hips down into his; it simply happened.

Instead of the rumbling sound in his throat, Tonks heard and felt the hiss of Remus' sharply indrawn breath, then the sudden lack of warmth as he pulled his lips from hers.

Her pulse, already an uneven staccato from the heated kisses, fluttered even more wildly against the thin skin of her wrists as she watched Remus, eyes still closed, catch his breath -- bringing himself back under control. Oh God -- she hadn't meant to take the lead like that. She'd only responded to how he made her feel...Apparently, though, that wasn't what he felt. She'd misread his actions.

But how could she have done? They'd talked about sex -- her virginity; his hope of taking their relationship to the next level during this holiday. If it was true that actions spoke louder than words, well -- his hand on her breast spoke of a man who believed what she'd said about hoping the same, for her first time.

Fear promptly turned on its heel and fled, however, when Remus' blond lashes parted to reveal blue eyes that were brilliantly bright with desire. In case his eyes had not been crystal clear enough for her, he slipped the tips of his fingers just inside her jeans.

And in case those still had not managed to give her the picture, he asked, huskily, "Shall we take this upstairs?"

While Tonks was fully aware that the ear-to-ear grin splitting her face, making her cheeks ache, probably wasn't a bedroom smile, she couldn't hold it back. It wasn't just because Remus Lupin wanted to take her to bed, though that did have a great deal to do with it. With any other bloke, that would have been a line -- a pretty seduction, whispered in her ear as his stubble rubbed her cheek. Remus, on the other hand -- he had looked her in the eye as he asked it, concern etched on his face, inquiring whether she_ wanted to go to bed with him. Even more than that, he had avoided the words _go to bed_ completely, preserving their Christmas holiday from agonising awkwardness of crossed intentions that would arise should she _not_ want that._

Barely able to contain a giddy giggle that would certainly make him change his mind, Tonks said, "I take it that by 'upstairs' you mean 'to the bedroom we're sleeping in -- but not to sleep.'"

"And I take it that by being a smart arse..." Remus' eyes gleamed wickedly, and his hands -- both of them, this time -- slid underneath her and squeezed her bum. "...you mean yes."

She half-shrieked, half-laughed his name as he locked his fingers together and, in a swift, steady movement that, apart from a small 'oof' of effort, belied his slender build, he stood, lifting her up with him.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Lupin?" she cried, clinging to his shoulders as she crossed her ankles at the small of his back.

Her scolding was pretty ineffective even as playful admonishment, due to the fact that she was ridiculously thrilled at the show of masculine robustness. Not to mention a set of very vivid images of him carrying her upstairs...laying her carefully on the bed...kissing her again...removing her clothing piece by piece...covering her body with his...

He raised a sandy eyebrow. "Would it be more suited to an Auror for me to club you over your head and drag you upstairs by your hair?"

"Least then I'd have an excuse for not fighting back."

His chuckle rumbled deliciously against her chest, and all through her, as he leaned in for a kiss. So thoroughly distracting were all the sensations of him that the next thing she knew, she was standing on her feet again -- if it could be called that when you couldn't feel the floor and had to cling to the front of your boyfriend's jumper to keep your balance as the world spun pell-mell and at a crazy angle on its axis.

"Actually..."

His tone, though very quiet, barely above a whisper, somehow contained the authority to still everything again. Or maybe it was his bright eyes looking keenly down at her.

"I thought you might like a few minutes to yourself, to..." He paused, glanced upward as though the next word had drifted up there. "...to prepare."

Walking up the narrow staircase (or had she floated?) after that was the one thing Tonks couldn't recall about that night which, otherwise, was imprinted in her memory with startlingly vivid clarity. It was another of the many Christmas miracles to befall her that she hadn't injured herself, because she too preoccupied to focus on climbing stairs; all her concentration focused on trying to wrap her brain around the fact that Remus had, for all intents and purposes, asked her to put on lingerie. But not for himself -- though he would, undoubtedly, reap the benefit. His quiet suggestion had been all for her.

She had entrusted him with the truth that this would be her first time to be intimate with a man. He had not simply filed it away as something to be prepared for, but had been mindful of it in every action toward her from that point onward. Their snogging session in the living room might have turned into lovemaking right there on the floor -- had been, in fact, headed that way. But Remus had slowed them down, seeing to it that her first time would not pass in a blur of kisses and touches she might one day write off as the heat of a moment; instead, he ensured it would be a moment entered into deliberately, and regarded as special, a once in a life time moment.

So it had been with a remarkable calm that she'd changed into a sheer, silvery-white camisole and knickers set, more troubled about what colour and how to do her hair than about what was to come as she waited for Remus.

Reassured by the memory, and by the reminder she wore on her wrist -- Mannaz, which held creativity on high as a virtue -- Tonks scrunched up her face to carry out her morphing plans.

She changed her hair from green spikes to deeper green ringlets that cascaded her shoulders. Next, slightly trickier, in that it would require more energy than she was used to expending on morphs during intimate encounters, came her skin -- pale, shimmering gold from head to toe. And finally, running in a diagonal over all of that, a pattern of holly sprigs. Which took a hell of a lot more time and effort than it had during her practice run in the bathroom, because then she hadn't factored in a swarm of butterflies taking up residence in her stomach, making it nearly impossible to concentrate.

At last she managed it, and she hadn't yet heard Remus' step on the creaky staircase -- though she was pretty sure more than five minutes had passed since she'd begun working on the holly pattern alone. Either he was being a gentleman, or he'd got absorbed in his new book.

_He'll wish he'd stayed down there reading when he sees you in this get-up!_ she thought as she clipped the finishing touch -- a tag which read, _To Remus; Happy Christmas, Yours, Elphine_ -- to a lock of hair, and surveyed her gilt, green-haired reflection in the wardrobe mirror.

_Great Merlin, Tonks, what in bloody hell are you thinking? This is bizarre! You're mad! If Remus ever thought about asking you to marry him, he never will now that you've pulled this little stunt. You'd best change back into a normal human being before he--_

He was standing in the bedroom doorway, his image reflected over her shoulder in the mirror.

"Elphine," he said, voice low, muffled, as if he'd got something lodged in his throat.

_Sick, probably. Cos what you've done is so--_

"Have you...?" He was approaching her, slowly, eyes travelling over her backside, down her legs.

As he neared, Tonks saw that the look on his face did not belong to a man who thought his girlfriend had gone completely mental and lost all sense of taste. He reached his hand out, fingertips touching her side tentatively -- _reverently_ -- as if he'd never seen anything quite like her, as if he thought she was wonderful, but not quite real. She darted her eyes upward to meet his gaze in the mirror.

His Adam's apple bobbed. There was a smile in his eyes, which started to spread to his lips, but didn't quite, as if he couldn't entirely believe he was truly seeing it.

"Have you _gift-wrapped_ yourself?" His eyes settled on her hair, and his other hand reached up to shift the tag to an angle at which he could read it. He swallowed again and, grinning, added, "For me?"

Though relief had banished the tight, anxious feeling in her chest, Tonks still couldn't find it within herself to give more of an answer than to nod. She wasn't sure what she'd imagined he would do -- in fact, she hadn't let herself go there, lest she imagine the worst and chicken out -- but she certainly hadn't expected him to look so...Well...so dark-eyed and mesmerised, watching with a satisfied smile as his fingers splayed across her middle.

"How do I unwrap you?" he whispered.

His left hand trailed through her curls, down her neck, and across her chest, settling cupped over her right breast. Still watching in the mirror out the corner of his eye, he nuzzled her face, and pressed his lips to her cheek.

Tonks relaxed her morph minutely.

A holly sprig and the bit of gold background his lips had touched, returned to her natural pale skin tone.

Remus' eyes flicked up to hers, and she grinned. "Like that."

"Like this?"

Shifting slightly behind her, he lined his bottom lip up perfectly with the top edge of the patch he'd "unwrapped."

He kissed her, and revealed another bit of her skin.

And another.

The butterflies inside her, which had given up their nervous flapping, beat their wings with joy now as his light, sweet, tingle-inducing kisses made quick work of her face.

And everything else, as the sensations, the shivers of pleasure caused by his lips and his caressing fingers and his body pressed behind hers, became too much for her to concentrate on the morph.

"Damn it!" cried Tonks.

Chuckling, Remus kissed her shoulder "I'm sorry. I've always been a bit impatient when it comes to unwrapping my gifts. And I must say, that was the sexiest gift-wrap I've ever encountered."

Though pleased, Tonks joked, "Just don't expect that sexy gift-wrap on all your--"

She cut herself off with another exclamation, though this time only an incoherent squeal, as Remus swept her up in his arms and turned to carry her to the bed. Carefully he laid her down, then, stretching himself out alongside her, whispered that she was the best Christmas present he could ask her, and commenced with kissing every inch of her anyway...

_Her sharply indrawn breath as his lips closed around her nipple was the only sound in the room, and consequently rang very loudly in her own ears. Tonks caught her lower lip between her teeth, as much because she felt sheepish as because what he was doing to her nipple simply called for a reaction like catching your lower lip between your teeth._

Remus' blue eyes which, prior to now had been so intent on her breast, turned up to her face. Tonks bit her lip harder as she felt pink prickle into her cheeks, until the pleasant pull of his mouth on her nipple relaxed just slightly as his lips curved in a gentle smile. The look in his eyes, which was always in his eyes, was kind; he didn't mind her little gasp.

As she looked back at him, though, she realised it was a bit more than mere kindness. Not, of course, that kindness was anything to sneer at, especially not at a time like now. His silvery fringe falling over his forehead was downright sexy, lending a certain worldliness to the way he was looking at her. Not smugness, exactly, just...  
Confidence. That was it. Remus knew she liked what he was doing. He liked that he knew she liked what he was doing...Oh hell. It was too hard to think when he'd resumed doing that thing she liked...

And now with the added bonus of his other hand -- the one not cupping her breast -- which had been tangled in her hair, gliding over her cheek...her neck...her other breast...His hand continued its path still lower as he shifted his body to lie more alongside of her, skimming her side, her hipbone, lingering there a moment to fiddle with the string bikini strap of her knickers, before drifting on to stroke her inner thigh.

Though, with Remus' deft fingers and supple lips and -- oh sweet Merlin! -- his tongue working magic on such sensitive spots, she was, by the millisecond, being pulled closer and closer toward a plane where coherent thought did not exist, his steady blue eyes continued to hold hers -- except for when hers fluttered closed with her gasps -- and kept her brain somehow engaged. So far, she was enjoying her first time at lovemaking very, very much. Of course she suspected strongly there was a much more suitable verb than "enjoy" to apply to this situation. While she didn't know much in the way of experience, she did know in both head and heart that it took two to really make love. It was give and take. So far, she'd just been taking.

Which was made abundantly clear by fact that while she had only a scrap of sheer fabric on that hardly counted as knickers, he_ still had on his vest and trousers. And his belt, for Merlin's sake. What kind of girlfriend didn't at least help her boyfriend out of his--?_

Oh. dear. God.

She might have said it aloud. She might not have. She really couldn't be bothered which, because Remus' fingers had wandered from her inner thigh, and Tonks thought she'd never wanted to -- or ever could want to -- do anything other than press her hips into his palm.

"Are you all right?" Remus whispered, having stopped kissing her breast and pushed up on his elbow at some point she could not recall. Probably around the moment he'd begun concentrating his efforts elsewhere...

"All right?" Tonks repeated, feeling a bit stupid, at least in the speech department, but not caring terribly, as she felt absolutely alert and alive elsewhere.

Remus smiled, then bent his head to kiss her lips, murmuring that he just thought he'd check and be sure.

The kiss, Tonks thought, was strangely sweet and tender in comparison to other things that were going on at the moment. Not that the other things weren't tender, as well, and not that she didn't like the contrasting tone of the kiss. Quite the opposite, in fact, as she was pretty sure that the half-moan, half-sigh she'd just made against his lips, and one of her hands reaching up to rub his stubbled cheek, was the result of the kiss. It was just...interesting, and rather surprising, how much was going on in this moment.

What talk she'd heard of sex was that it was a forward drive of lust, of passion, a whirlwind of lips and hands and other bits, all vibrant colours and wild tempos, clothes flying off and sweat-slicked bodies tumbling together in a tangle. Now she thought about it...or not thought, exactly, so much as experienced...She'd been imagining a rock concert, not a bedroom scene. Which made sense, she supposed, seeing as she'd been to a lot more rock concerts than she'd read bedroom scenes...

Of course, anything might make sense in a moment when Remus Lupin was doing things with his hands that felt like the spell equivalent of a Euphoria Elixir, and doing really fantastic things to her ear with his tongue, as well. Both of which were causing so many gasps that very little oxygen was actually making it to her brain.

Somehow in the midst of not having fully-functioning faculties, Tonks realised when Remus raised his head again and watched her intently, smiling, as he carried on with his ministrations, that the unexpected element in this was precisely what she had noticed a moment ago...or however long ago:

Even though Remus had invited her for this holiday weekend with him partly because he wanted to sleep with her, right now his singular thought seemed to be her_. Not how much he wanted to be with her, but how much he wanted to make her first time a pleasurable one for her. Thus every kiss, every caress, was bestowed deliberately, with the utmost care._

And not carefully in the sense that he touched her tentatively or treated her like a delicate flower or some medieval damsel who needed a knight in shining armour to make great gallant gestures because she was a member of the weaker sex. Far from it, in fact, as his touches evoked increasingly bolder vocalisms and movements from her in response.

To be sure, his actions spoke of his full awareness in the difference in their ages and experience. However, Tonks sensed that Remus would be an attentive lover to whomever he was with. Sensitivity in bed wasn't a great leap for a man whose defining qualities were kindness and compassion that sometimes verged on the empathic, was it?

All of which, including the return of that thought about give and take, culminated in Tonks pressing her hand over Remus', ceasing the movements of his fingers.

His forehead crinkled slightly, sandy brows knitting together, and he swallowed. "Are you...?"

"All right, yes," Tonks said, breathlessly. "Better than all right. Fantastic, even."

Remus smiled, but it was laced with confusion and didn't quite fill his eyes. "Then why...?"

It seemed so strange to be talking about this, with a bloke she fancied the pants off of (despite the fact that she hadn't quite managed to get the pants, or the trousers, off him yet) and who she desperately wanted to get this right with. And it seemed even more strange that she wasn't blushing hotly, or even a little bit warmly, at least not to her knowledge.

Of course, she had told him she was a virgin. There wasn't much you couldn't say to a bloke after you'd said that. Especially when he'd been perfectly cool about it, and then done all he'd done tonight to put her at ease, and make it good.

In that light, it didn't seem strange at all. She'd trusted him, and he'd honoured that, every step of the way. Not once since that kiss in front of the fire, which had ignited the spark that sent them here, had she feared this. Remus would make it the best it could be for her. She trusted her pleasure to him, completely.

The one concern she did have was that she might be too novice at this to please him.

But she would damn sure try.

She leaned in and kissed him, twining her fingers into the hair at the base of his neck. It wasn't an especially deep kiss, nor did it linger, but his breath hitched, and his body told her that he felt it as deeply as she'd wanted him to.

Drawing back just enough to meet his eye, she said, "Cos I want you to be fantastic, too."

"I am," he insisted, tracing his index finger along the curve of her cheek, then twirling a strand of her hair around it. "I am perfectly content to wait till you're ready...And if you decide you're not quite ready to go all the way--"  
She cut him off with another kiss, which left him dazed-looking and tousled and gasping for air. Her, too. But her thoughts were all for him.

Reaching for his belt, she said, "I'm ready when you are..."

So Remus undressed. Rather than feeling shy at seeing him naked, Tonks understood how he had been so content to watch her, because her insides all lurched with delight, her heart skipping a beat, to see how eagerly he divested himself of belt, trousers, vest...she swallowed hard...underpants.

Not to mention she was plain pleased with what she saw. Remus' hair might be grey and his face a little careworn, but his slender, smooth body presented a more accurate picture of a wizard in his prime. His wasn't a toned, athletic build, such as Des went on about with her Quidditch blokes and Kingsley, but his trim limbs and waist bore witness to the active traveller's lifestyle he'd kept before teaching at Hogwarts, and Tonks thought it suited him -- and her. Certainly nothing about him without his clothes cried "werewolf" any more than when he had clothes on. Where was his scar?

She didn't wonder for long. As she ran her eyes over his body, taking in all the new bits of him that were hers to explore, she forgot all about scars and instead thought of how many kissable spots there were on him: the hollows of his collarbones, the patch of pale skin below his navel, ringed by a trail of fine golden hairs, the dimples just above his hipbones...

He sat at the edge of the bed, facing her, unself-consciously watching her watch him. Tonks smiled, and reached for his hand, and Remus twined his fingers through hers and brought their joined hands to his mouth.

"Come here," she said, tugging at his hand.

His eyes glanced sidelong at her body stretched out beside him, then moved to her eyes again. Asking permission.

Tonks rolled her eyes, but smiled, and let go of his hand to touch his knee. She just stroked his thigh with her fingertips, marvelling at the softness of the hair against her skin, surprised at how such a tiny sensation as that could make her tummy constrict.

"Come here," she said again, sliding her hand higher up his thigh.

Remus shifted to slide one leg over her, her stomach muscles coiling tighter as the bare skin of his inner thigh made contact with the bare skin of her hip. Oh, God! She sucked her breath in sharply as he straddled her, sitting up on his knees. But amid the pleasant sensations of him testing his weight against her, she glanced down and realised one thing had been forgotten.

"Wait!" She shot out one hand, pressing her palm to his chest, to hold him off her. Alarmed lines started to ghost his features, until she explained, "My knickers."

He grinned, then, glancing down at the tiny scrap of material that left nothing to the imagination, before meeting her eyes again. "You don't have to--"

"They'll get in the way if I don't." She reached down for the straps at her hips and, on very bold impulse, moved her hips beneath his.

She watched his stomach suck in, and glanced up at his face just in time to see his eyelids flutter, and felt the response of other bits.

Bloody hell. Had she really done that to him?

He opened his eyes, and looked down at her a little blearily.

"You see?" Grinning, she moved again. "They're already in the way."

Remus needed no further encouragement to help her out of her knickers. He pulled them down with a flourish, and dropped them over the bedpost, which made her laugh --

--but her laugh ended abruptly, with a hiss as, instead of straddling her again, Remus delicately wrapped his long, thin fingers around her ankles, and began kissing his way up her legs, back to her. She tried to make a sound of indignation that he was doing it again, thinking only about her when it was his turn to be thought about, but it was impossible to be indignant about something that felt so wonderful.

When his lips reached her thighs, however, and his kisses, bestowed amid his own heavy breaths, had her trembling and taut beneath his hands on her hips, her hands clutching and twisting the sheets, she wrapped her legs around him, nudging him over her.

"You're ready," she said.

He ducked his head, grinning sheepishly. "Well yes, but--"

"I said when you're ready--"

"You're ready."

His gentleness made Tonks conscious of how sharply she'd spoken to him, but apparently he wasn't bothered -- looked a little touched, in fact. And then she wasn't analysing tones of voices or facial expressions because he was sliding his hands over her waist and breasts again as he positioned himself over her and oh God, they really were going to do it...

Hands coming to rest on either side of her head, his forearms brushing her shoulders, he hovered over her, looking into her eyes for a long time. His expression was so earnest that for a moment she wondered if he was going to tell her he loved her, which was at once a thrilling and terrifying prospect, because that would be a huge step she simply wasn't ready for, not on top of the leap she was already taking, here in bed with him.

Thankfully, when Remus spoke, it was only to whisper to her to try and relax, and to assure her that he would take his time and be very gentle, and to tell her stop him if anything was uncomfortable, all of which struck her as the sort of things that might have been very condescending from some blokes, but when Remus said them, she only felt his consideration and respect...His lips brushed hers softly, sweetly, as he touched her, then--

Tonks gasped.

It hadn't hurt, precisely, when Remus had pressed into her. But it was, undeniably, different than anything she'd felt before, and comfortable definitely wasn't a word she'd attach to it in any way. He remained very still, looking at her, anxious lines criss-crossing the corners of his eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Instead of answering, Tonks glanced down at their bodies.

Their joined bodies.

Despite the discomfort, a warm, pleasant flush stole through her, and her insides quivered.

That was her.

And that was Remus.

She was doing this. With him.

She was so, so glad it was him.

Sudden tears pricked her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.

"Elphine," Remus whispered. His weight on her shifting as he moved one hand to stroke her hair back from her face. "Are you all right?"

She opened her eyes, and smiled up at his face, which through her tears appeared to shine. Then she moved, wrapping her legs around the backs of his, which at once decreased the uncomfortable pressure on her as pleasure washed beautifully over his face.

"I told you," she whispered as she arched into him, "I'm bloody fantastic."

When they finally rolled away from each other, Tonks scrunched up her nose and turned her green ringlets into bubblegum pink spikes, giggling a little as she wondered whether Molly was being eaten alive with curiosity to know the story behind why Remus fancied the pink, and what she would think if she knew it was simply an impulsive thing Tonks had done after their first time.

Remus, his chest still heaving as he caught his breath, turned his head on his pillow and grinned at her. "Feel pink?" he asked, just as he had then, and every time after.

"I reckon I owe you another pressie," Tonks said by way of reply, "since I got a lot out of that, as well."

Remus raised his hand and scuffed her cheekbone with his thumb. "You don't owe me a thing, Elphine. I won't be forgetting how you looked gift-wrapped for some time. I imagine it'll Conjure a Patronus or two..." He yawned, hugely, too sluggish from sex to get his hand to his mouth in time to cover it. When it passed, he looked at her through droopy eyes. "You gave me you. What more could a man ask for?"

Tonks could think of something.

Something more she could be.

Dare she say it?

In light of what they had just done, she thought back to where it had all begun, the first time. Trust. They were here now because she'd trusted him with her body. Since then, since she'd fallen in love with him, that trust had only grown; though broken once, it had only got twice as strong with the mending.

_You trust him completely,_ said her heart. _That's what you told Molly. So tell Remus!_

Scooting closer to him, nestling into the crook of his arm, she rested her head on his shoulder and spread her hand over his steadily beating heart. When he had covered her hand with his own, she asked, "What about a bride?"

For a breathless, endless moment, Remus didn't answer. Had she stunned him? Was he asleep?

He nuzzled her temple and whispered, "You'd make a beautiful bride."

Then his chest rose and fell heavily, and Remus was sound asleep.

Tonks, however, remained wide awake.

* * *

**_A/N: If you actually made it through this, I'm very impressed and love you forever. If you can spare another moment to let me know what you thought, I'll show my appreciation by offering reviewers your very own gift-wrapped Remus -- in your choice of wrapping material. ;)_**


	7. The Tip of the Iceberg

**6. The Tip Of the Iceberg**

"Oh, good," said Tonks, descending into the basement kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and finding Remus already at the table, all the places set and a serving platter of toast in front of him, removing a couple of teabags from the tarnished silver pot.

He looked up and, seeing her, pushed back his chair and stood. His usual smile was notably absent from his pale, drawn face.

"You got my owl?" she asked.

He nodded, drawing out the chair beside his for her. "We need to talk."

"S'why I owled." A bit of an edge crept into her voice, which she was unable to keep out even as she thanked him for the chair at the foot of the table, kitty-corner to his, which she did not immediately take.

In recent weeks -- when their paths managed to cross at all, that was, which wasn't often -- it seemed impossible not to speak to him that way. Which she hated, but...

_That's the price you pay when you gamble your relationship and find out your boyfriend isn't on the same page as you. How long will you even be able to keep calling him boyfriend, now you've put this awkwardness between you?_

"Forgive me," said Remus quietly, giving his head a little shake. "I did not greet you properly. Good morning."

He kissed her. Just a peck, not their usual lingering greeting kiss, and as their lips touched, Tonks had a strange sense that she was not actually kissing Remus. He was somewhere else, not here with her.

_He doesn't want to marry you, but he's going through the motions of kissing you. Are you just a habit to him?_

Is he to you? A two-year habit...

To silence her maddening inner voice, Tonks pulled away from Remus and, shifting into Auror mode, cast a wary eye around the mouldy kitchen. It seemed strange to find herself alone here with Remus, when the Weasley family and Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had been always underfoot for the past month, and though due to leave after breakfast, yet were asleep in the rooms above.

"I take it since you kissed me it's safe," she said in a low, cautious voice, scanning every nook and off-kilter door as she slipped into her seat. "No Kreacher about?"

"Just the Dark one."

At his short, acerbic laugh, Tonks jerked to face him, slamming her elbow on the edge of the table. She inhaled sharply through her teeth and clutched at her throbbing funny bone.

_Why's it bloody called that, anyway? It jolly well doesn't feel funny._

Not unlike Remus' joke. Where in Merlin's name was this self-recrimination coming from?

"What in bloody hell happened last night?" she demanded.

As Remus resumed his seat, Tonks noticed how the slightly bitter smile playing around the corners of his mouth deepened the furrows of his face. "Our prank backfired. Tea?"

"So I gathered!" she said, ignoring the offer of tea, his damned politeness irking her even more. "When I got home from my shift last night, Hestia was waiting for me. Bit my head off about how wrong it was that you and I've been hiding our relationship from the Order."

_Bit your head off about a lot of other things, too. Said it was positively shameful, after all Remus has been through, the way you've hidden him away like some dark secret...Said she wished he didn't think so lowly of himself that he could see how much better he deserved than a young girl too selfish to see what you're doing to him by not wearing him proudly on your arm...Said you're a disgrace to the Order of the Phoenix if you can't stand up in defiance against the likes of Dolores Umbridge._

A load of complete hogswallop, if you asked Tonks, and she certainly wasn't going to relay all of it to Remus, because he'd be mortified if he knew his Order colleagues said pitying things like _after all he's been through_ behind his back.

As if this secret relationship business was all _her_ idea. _What she was doing to him?_ Bollocks! Remus coped wonderfully well, all things considered. _If_ he was suffering for their secretiveness _(which he obviously isn't, or he'd understand you better)_, it wasn't due to anything she'd done, seeing as she'd done nothing but stand by Remus through thick and thin, even when he held back _(everything)_ from her.

"You've discovered you _can_ morph additional heads, then?" he joked pleasantly, pouring her tea anyway, adding cream and sugar to her taste. "Only you haven't shown up looking like a member of the de Mimsy-Porpington family..." He tilted his head and inspected her collar, as if checking her neck severed and hanging on by a thread.

_You see, Hestia Jones, you stupid cow? Tonks thought spitefully as they shared a quiet laugh. If Remus were really as miserable as you make him out to be, would he be cracking jokes at every turn, in the middle of what's meant to be a serious conversation? Or touching my arm like that as he sets my tea in front of me?_

Almost the instant she'd thought _serious conversation_, Remus' raspy chuckle died, and the small smile faded, taking with it the light from his eyes and the colour from his cheeks. His hand slid away from her arm, and his eyes fixed on his fingers as they fiddled with the silver serpentine handle of the Black family china teacup.

"Yesterday afternoon," he said, "Sirius found me copying out your note from Hestia's _secret admirer_. Thinking it might cheer him up about the row with Severus, I let him in on our little prank."

"Good idea," said Tonks, "though I reckon only in theory, and it's Sirius that made our cunning plan go awry?"

"Indeed," said Remus, letting the word trail away with a sigh. "Apparently even Sirius' capacity to take the mickey out of Snape has a limit. I should have known when he told me to stop pining over you and doing every little thing you asked that sabotage was imminent, but I suppose in my desire to pacify him, my judgment became clouded."

Tonks had taken a drink of her tea as Remus spoke; it turned bitter in her mouth as she imagined Sirius talking about her with a great deal more venom than Remus was letting on.

_And Remus, chivalrous as he can be, only defending you with mild platonic detachment in the name of bloody cover._

"Somehow he intercepted my owl," Remus went on, calmly -- _infuriatingly_, "a talent he cultivated in our school days, and exchanged it for one of his own composition. Which, as I discovered when he lured me into the drawing room last evening, invited Hestia for a romantic candlelight dinner. _Not_ with Secret Admirer Severus."

"He _didn't_!" The teacup slipped from Tonks' hands, sending a wave of tea across the table.

Without looking at her, Remus dried up the mess with a flick of his wand, righted the cup, and poured her more tea, though Tonks knew it would remain untouched, sickening bile having lodged painfully in her throat.

"I never was one for Divination," Remus said, "but I doubt more prophetic words ever were spoken than _Remusdirect her_."

"What happened?" Tonks asked. "I mean, I know Hestia must have confessed her feelings for you and mortified herself, but what--?"

"She kissed me," said Remus.

For a moment Tonks sat, open-mouthed, a ringing sound in her ears.

Hestia Jones...

_kissed_...

_That filthy little hussy touched _your_ Remus? On the lips? With _her_ mouth?_

Oh God, she was going to be sick...

"I hate to be the one to tell you this," Remus' voice broke gently through the deafening drone in her ears, "but your hair..."

Tonks picked up a teaspoon and checked her distorted reflection in the convex back.

"Oh for the love of--!"

Her hair had spontaneously gone dark ringlets, like the object of her...whatever very negative emotion she was experiencing right now.

She scrunched up her nose and, without really picturing a specific change, morphed her hair.

It went green.

_With envy?_

Bollocks, she wasn't jealous! Mad as hell at that little cow, but why would she envy someone else for kissing _her_ boyfriend?

Imagining the bubblegum pink she wore for Remus, she morphed again. The result was boring brown that looked like she'd tried to dye it with one of Gilderoy Lockhart's Hair Today, Dyed Tomorrow Salon-At-Home kits.

"What did you do?" she asked Remus.

"Nothing!"

Two patches of red had bloomed above his cheekbones, accentuating his bone structure. He looked rather miffed that she would ask.

"Certainly I did not kiss her back. She got the point quickly enough. Whatever she may be, she is not stupid."

"Oh no, not _stupid_," Tonks snorted, "thinking you admired her from afar!"

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Weren't you rather counting on her to think that in order to carry off your little prank?"

"Didn't it stop being _my little prank_ the second you agreed to help me?"

Their eyes held, locked in a brief duel of wills.

Which she won.

Remus looked away first, shoulders slumping as he sighed deeply.

Elbows on the table, he fisted his shaggy hair. "I take full responsibility," he said. "I ought to have been the one to put my foot down and say no."

"Why? Cos you're older?"

"Don't put words in my mouth," Remus hissed, glancing upward, where above floors creaked as the residence of the House of Black stirred, which set Walburga moaning in the corridor. "And keep your voice down."

"Weren't the words already there?"

_That's not fair, Tonks. Just cos he's really upset you with that, "You're so young," rubbish the other day doesn't mean you've got the right to bring that quarrel into this one._

But aren't they the same quarrel, at the root of it? she countered herself.

Her conscience promptly shut up.

"Please, Tonks," Remus implored, "I've already got a quarrel with Sirius. I can't juggle one with you, as well. Again."

"Technically it's not quarrelling with me _again_ since clearly it never ended the other day. More like _resuming_--"

"_Don't_," he cut her off, and somehow the very quietness of his voice contained an authority that reminded her she'd let her voice rise again with her temper. "You are correct, our quarrel did not end -- but I would like for it to."

Folding her arms across her chest, Tonks tilted her chair on its back legs. "Then give me a reason why you won't talk about the m-word with me."

His foot caught the support beam that connected the legs of her char, pushing it flat onto the ground again, and his eyes bored into hers. "I gave you one."

_"You must be tired," said Remus, catching her hands, which had been mounting a Glow Star to the ceiling over their bed, and gently prising it away from her. "Otherwise you'd never be putting up that dinky little star where Pollux goes."_

Tonks grinned sleepily at him. "George'd be right pissed off to know I tried to give him a tiny head."

"Or is that Fred?" Remus cocked his head to inspect their partially completed map of Gemini, which they had mutually agreed was the right and proper place to begin their glow-in-the-dark map of the constellations, in honour if the Weasley twins, from whom Remus had obtained the Glow Stars. "We never decided which of the Gemini represented which Weasley twin."

"No, it's definitely George. Pollux was the sweet twin in the myth. Or his name means sweet, anyway."

She moved to get a better-sized star from the selection scattered across the messy unmade sheets and duvet they were standing on, but the mattress shifted, and she narrowly avoided a plunge from the bed by Remus' sure hand catching her elbow.

"Hand me that nice big one, then?" she asked.

Remus Summoned the one she was pointing to, but kept his eyes on her face, scrutinising her.

"Ta," she said, turning to affix the proper star at the left twin's head, but Remus held her firmly, facing him.

"You do look tired," he said.

"Didn't sleep much," Tonks said with a shrug. "No big deal."

"Was I snoring?"

"You don't snore."

Remus' hand fell to his side. "At school James and Sirius always said my snores could wake Inferi."

Snorting, Tonks resumed her placement of Pollux. "I can't believe you'd have fallen for anything that pair of liars told you. What'd you do with that little star I had? It'll do for Upsilon Geminorum."

The mattress shifted again as Remus stretched over her to place the star for Pollux's chest. "If I wasn't snoring, what kept you up?"

Tonks wavered as she fought to keep her balance on the moving bed. Collapsing to her knees amid the plastic stars, she admitted, "Trying to figure out what you meant last night."

Remus added Pollux's left hand, then looked down at her with a furrowed brow. "Last night?"

Tonks' heart felt as if it had turned into a Snidget that had found itself in the middle of a Quidditch match. Though terrified of continuing with that train of thought, as Remus' apparent ignorance, whether real or feigned, seemed to confirm the worst fears she'd had during the wakeful night, she knew she must answer him honestly, because he_ knew something was wrong, and it was impossible to hide from him._

At least she had an excuse not to look into his intuitive blue eyes. She dropped her gaze, and pretended to hunt for a good Iota Geminorum for the twins' joined hands.

"You know," she said, "before we went to sleep."

Remus dropped onto the mattress, stretching his long, plaid pyjama-clad legs out as he reclined on one elbow. "If it was post-coital and I was falling asleep, chances are, I didn't mean a thing."

In spite of having just acknowledged the possibility of Remus' being completely unaware of the words they'd exchanged before he drifted off to sleep, his words, though lightly spoken, struck her like a slap in the face. She felt numb, immune to his touch, as his hand settled on her knee.

"What were we talking about?" he asked.

Tonks wondered if this wasn't a sign that she'd been spared something horrible, given a rare chance to alter a misstep without having to suffer the inevitably dire consequences of it. A sharp inward prick, however, as if that Snidget flitting around in her chest had pecked at her heart, compelled her to do something to satisfy the hunger for honesty which had gnawed at her for the past week, leaving her starved.

"It's just..."

She hesitated, drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them. Remus' hand remained on her knee, its weight comforting. His kind eyes bade her to continue, and she moved one hand to rest atop his, fingers curling lightly around his thumb, which had been stroking her red flannel pyjama bottoms with the cute grinning snowmen.

"The attack on Arthur got me thinking," she said. "We've been together two years now. Don't most couples who've been together that long usually start thinking about..." She looked away again, swallowed, drew a deep breath, blurted, "...moving in together...sharing a surname...making miniature people with the same surname...?"

She braced herself for the age of thick silence that was sure to follow, but was startled by Remus' immediate answer.

"I am certain that many couples do begin to think along those lines after two years, yes."

Hope burst within her like one of Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous Fireworks and, smiling, she raised her head to look at Remus.

No explosion of shimmering colour followed, as she saw his face, set in an expression of terrible, utter neutrality.

"I am equally certain" he went on, "that many other couples do not."

"What about this one?"

Then came the age of thick silence. Which, once it had been broken, Tonks wished had gone on forever.

Remus touched her cheek, smiling sadly at her. "You're so young, Elphine."

Recoiling from his touch as if it had been some cold, slithering thing, Tonks flung her feet over the edge of the bed and stood. "What the bloody hell's that supposed to mean?"

Her bravado was a defence against the hurt she felt, but when Remus continued to smile at her, a measure of tolerance creeping into his expression, and addressed her as if she were Ginny Weasley or Hermione Granger or some other much-younger person he could have taught. "As you said, the attack on Arthur got you thinking about marriage. In wartime, people always rush into marriages because they fear time is short."

Tonks resisted an impulse to stamp her foot, settling for digging her bare heel into the rough wooden floor as she balled her hands into her fists at her sides, fingernails carving half-moons into her own palms. "But it is short!"

"That is no reason to make up your mind about something like marriage."

Remus shuffled the stars on the bed, selected one, and stood up on the bed once more. As he positioned it at Pollux's waist, he looked at Tonks, his face unperturbed.

"You'll see. In a few weeks, once the shock has worn off and you can step back from the situation and look at it objectively, you will not feel so pressed."

It had been a few weeks, but Tonks didn't feel she'd achieved any objectivity from the passage of time that she hadn't arrived at through her own realisations in the wake of Arthur Weasley's brush with death. True, they had been born of great emotional duress, but why didn't that make them legitimate feelings?

"I meant a _good_ reason," Tonks flung at him. "Yours just smacked of a typical stupid man who's not in touch with emotions."

She'd spoken out of equal parts frustration and an odd desire to provoke him into some sort of emotional reaction, but Remus' face remained impassive and his body language communicated nothing.

_Don't forget who you're dealing with, Tonks. Remus might not understand how _your_ emotions work with _your_ mind, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got feelings of his own, and that they aren't playing into what he thinks. He's just so damn good at hiding them. _

"I will give you three good reasons," said Remus, so low that Tonks nearly missed it amid the rising volume of the sounds of a household awakening -- doors creaking open and slamming, pipes groaning and gurgling as rusty water struggled to flow through them, the muffled shouts of the kids doing last-minute packing as their mother scolded them.

"One: After eighteen months of unemployment, I am hardly in the position to marry."

"You've got a house!"

Immediately Tonks regretted her retort, as guilt hit her like a cold sea breaker that she'd forced him to admit things which surely killed his pride which she was clever enough to know without his saying. He wasn't meeting her eyes. Oh, Merlin...

_Hestia was right about you! You are selfish, and--_

She had to stop him from going on.

But thought occurred too late.

Remus had already said, "Two: With Voldemort rallying Dark Creatures to his side, it is entirely likely that much darker times lie ahead for my kind. Keeping a low profile will, more than ever, be of utmost importance if I am to continue to serve the Order effectively -- or to continue a relationship with you. Which brings me to my third point--"

"I see your point!" Tonks cried. As the echo of her voice off the rough stone walls died, she thought she heard the scuff of a slipper on the steps, and a muffled cough.

Remus' eyes flicked to the closed door, then back to her. "If secrecy is vital to our Order work," he whispered, leaning toward her, "not to mention to your career, how could we possibly marry?"

It was on the tip of Tonks' tongue to shout that she didn't know, but if they wanted it badly enough they would find a way. (She could only hope that he was rejecting the idea outright because he _did_ want it, but did not want to be hurt by holding the dream too close; though she had no real foundation for that hope.) Her fingers itched to grab him by the front of his robes and shake him, and tell him that she didn't care what it meant to her career. In fact, _sod_ her career. All she wanted was _him_--

--but the door creaked open, and Molly's face peeked around it, very pale between the contrasting flame red of her hair and deep purple of her quilted dressing gown. Her brown eyes were wide and obviously troubled as they darted back and forth from Tonks to Remus, but she smiled and said, "Good morning, dears. I don't mean to interrupt, but I need to start breakfast soon so we can get the children off in time."

"Come in," Remus said, "we were just--"

"Could you give us another minute or two, Molly?" Tonks interrupted.

No way was she letting this drag on. They had work to do today, and she was crap when things weren't right between them. She'd not been on top of her game since this marriage issue had cropped up, and Kingsley, though he thought she and Remus as romantic partners were a thing of the past, had told her she was moping about and mucking up like she had when she'd broken up with Remus.

"Of course," said Molly, just as something like an explosion, followed by peals of laughter, sounded several storeys up. "Anyway, I think the twins need another reminder that they're supposed to be _packing_."

The second the door closed behind her, Remus whispered urgently, "I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but that's how I feel, and I would appreciate if you could drop it, for now."

Though the phrase _drop it_ put her on the defensive, she honoured his request.

"We won't be a secret from the Order now," she said, reaching for a slice of toast -- stone cold now -- and scraping butter across it. "You know Hestia won't be able to keep her big mouth shut about it, right?"

She spooned out a measure of orange marmalade, accidentally dabbing her thumb in it. She licked it off, then added, "And Sirius will harass us both every chance he gets."

"We should not have done it," said Remus. "Hestia is angry and mortified, and Sirius sees it as a betrayal." Clutching the handle of his teacup, he added, darkly, "I think he's angrier at me than he is at Severus."

Tonks took a bite of toast. "He's not really angry at Snape. He's just angry."

Remus shook his head.

"He is!" Tonks said.

"Well, yes," Remus whispered, again reminding her to keep her voice down. "But I believe he really was concerned about me not being able to get over you. Then he found out I was hiding from him that you and I really have been together all along."

"Sorry to cut your little guilt trip short, but I seriously doubt it had as much to do with you as it did with him wanting something to amuse him. Like hooking his best mate up with an annoying cow. He's still living in your Marauder days. Or trying to."

"You don't understand."

Tonks shot him a glare. "Because I'm so young?"

Looking up at the mouldy ceiling, Remus shut his eyes, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I have never regretted a choice of words more."

"Cut it out with the regrets, will you?" Tonks said. "Going back to your earlier point, even if you _hadn't_ agreed to go along with the prank, it's not like you could've stopped me. I'd have just gone ahead with it myself, tried to write like a bloke -- come to think of it, Snape's writing's a bit girly. Or I'd have thought the same as you, that a prank on Snape would cheer Sirius up, and asked him to write the stupid letter. Then we'd _still_ be in this spot, and you wouldn't be responsible."

She crammed the rest of her toast in her mouth, then washed it down with a gulp of tea.

"Anyway, I'm glad it's out in the open, because much as I hate to admit it, Hestia's right. We should've trusted the Order."

"It wouldn't have been right for us to burden them with our secrets," said Remus. "They already keep enough--"

"It was _more_ wrong not to trust them," Tonks cut him off.

She held up her left arm, pushing up her sleeve to reveal her rune bracelet, and held Mannaz, Rune of Humanity, in front of his face. It's opal caught the flickering candlelight from one of the wall sconces.

"You gave me this rune for the Order. You said the Order would bear us up. But how can they -- why would they -- when we're hiding?"

Remus said nothing, and his thoughtful silence encouraged Tonks.

"I'm sorry how it came out, with people getting hurt, but honestly I'm glad it's out in the open now. I can't do it anymore, Remus. I have too much to do -- we both have -- and too little time, to waste on this--"

"Tonks, let it go--"

"I'm not talking about marriage, Remus!"

His gaze darted to the door again, beyond which came the sounds of trunks thumping down the stairs. "Your voice...The kids..."

"All I've ever wanted is to wear my own face," Tonks whispered. "The Order are the only people I can be completely honest with anymore, but I haven't been, because of us. We've been a lie--"

Remus' face went ghastly pale, but Tonks assumed it was because at that moment, the kitchen door had banged open, revealing Harry, Ron, and Hermione gawping in the dark stairway.

During the hurried affair that was breakfast, Tonks began to rethink her assessment of Remus' pallor. He spoke little, which was odd for him. The uncomfortable atmosphere of the room was heightened by the continual concerned glances Molly kept throwing over her shoulder as she cooked, and Sirius' sullen presence at the head of the table.

Without eating more than a few bites of toast and taking a couple of sips of tea, Remus rose from the table. He looked down at Tonks with business-like detachment and asked, "How are you going today?"

Tonks knew the necessity of disguise for this assignment of accompanying the kids back to Hogwarts, but in the context of the last words she'd whispered to him, the question struck her like the opening spell in a duel.

Rising to her feet, not once allowing her glare to waver from his eyes, she morphed into a tall, tweedy witch with iron grey hair.

"Not so young now?" she muttered before she stalked off to Transfigure her clothes into the outfit of the sort of woman he, apparently, thought he might travel with and not arouse suspicion.

* * *

No thanks to the herky-jerky Knight Bus ride and the oblivion of its conductor, whom Tonks resorted to threatening with hexing to Oblivion before he got the point that it was urgent his next stop be Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she developed a banging headache which did nothing to improve her mood or outlook on life after her row with Remus.

She followed Remus' lead, re-boarding the bus for the return trip to Grimmauld Place, without argument, not wanting to give him the advantage of being able to say something superior like, _See? Fretting over us has brought you nothing but a headache._

"There's two seats together at the back, where I sat with Ginny and the twins," Remus said. "Should be fairly private for conversation."

He looked at her appraisingly at first, then with concern deepening the lines at the corners of eyes. Lightly touching the elbow of her matronly tweed jacket, he asked, "Or would you prefer fresh air?"

She jerked her arm away, sneering. "Or would _you_ prefer fresh air while I stay down here -- _for cover_?"

She stalked to the back of the bus, surprised that Remus followed. His gait was slow, cautious almost, and he barely took his seat before a BANG catapulted Tonks out of hers. Remus' arms shot out, catching her round the waist before she could slam her head into the armchair in front.

"Thanks," she muttered grudgingly as he eased her back into her chair.

Remus kept one hand resting lightly, protectively, on her shoulder. At any other time, Tonks would have loved the gesture, taken it as a true sign of how deeply, in every little detail, he cared for her. In point of fact, it held that precise effect over her now, perhaps even more so, because even though they were quarelling, he continued to look after her.

Less pleasant was the fair amount of guilt it heaped on her as well, which she didn't feel she deserved. She wouldn't quarrel with him if he wouldn't be unreasonable. It couldn't _all_ be her fault, could it?

_Look at him, Tonks. Does that expression say he blames you even a little bit?_

Tonks obeyed her conscience, and gasped to see him wearing the face he'd worn that day the summer before last, when she'd broken up with him. It was a face she'd hoped never to see again.

"How long have you been unhappy with me?" he asked.

"What? I'm not--"

Hand falling away from her shoulder, into his lap, Remus turned his head and peered out the window at the Muggle traffic the Knight Bus was weaving through, which moved at a Streeler's pace in comparison to the magical vehicle. Though, the way her head pounded with every zig-zag of the bus, Tonks thought those Muggle might be on to something, with their slow pace and shortest-distance-between-two-points-is-a-s

traight-line routes.

"You said you can't do it anymore," Remus said, hoarsely, and in the daylight pouring through the window, his eyes look glassy. "You said we're a lie. Those are not the words of a happy woman."

Tonks winced, which sent a searing flash of pain behind her eyes. Her thoughts echoed Remus' earlier statement: she'd never regretted a choice of words more.

_Don't get too down on yourself. He's pulled them all out of context and pieced them together in a crazy patchwork that has nothing to do with what you meant._

She sat up straight -- no easy task since at that moment the bus gave another BANG that forced her to shoot her legs out and plant her heels firmly in the back of the seat in front of her. Which sent a little wizard flying out of his seat, but it was survival of the fittest on the Knight Bus.

Putting her feet on the floor again, she turned to Remus and said, "Not three weeks ago I all but asked you to marry me. Why the hell would I ask for a permanent relationship with you if I wasn't happy?"

Remus met her eye. "Perhaps you thought marriage might be the cure-all to make you happy?"

Tonks gawped at him. He had not just...! Did he really think...?

_You're so young._

Battling the sting of tears, Tonks slid in her seat to face front. "Not if we're acting like this."

They rode silently for several minutes -- apart from the BANGS which, for all they worsened the throbbing in Tonks' temples and made her even more irritable, also jarred her into action.

"I meant I'd had enough of secrets, you daft great prat!" she hissed, clutching the edges of her seat to keep from being jostled around. How _was_ Remus managing to sit so steady on this wild ride? _Typical._ "I can't keep us a secret anymore."

"Do you think I _like_ hiding you?" Remus asked. "You're the sort of witch I'd very much like to stand in the middle of Diagon Alley and shout to the whole Wizarding community that I'm the luckiest man in the world because Nymphadora Tonks is my girlfriend." His eyes, bright with emotion, held hers and he added, very softly, "Or my wife."

As if he'd given her a headache potion, the throbbing abated, and even though she knew it was impossible, the Knight Bus seemed to have adopted a smoother course.

_He does feel what you do._

She drew her seat closer to his, so that her shoulder touched his upper arm. Discreetly, she stretched out her ring and pinky fingers to touch his knee.

"I don't want the whole Wizarding community, Remus. The Order's enough, really, and we've got that now..."

Glancing up at him, she noticed the tight set of his jaw, his cheek muscle flexing almost imperceptibly beneath his pale skin. He didn't seem pleased that the Order knew.

"It's just..." She turned to face him. "How far do you plan on taking this? You're the one that got emotional after and said that could've been me Nagini nearly killed. What if it _had_ been? Wouldn't you have blown cover and sat by my bed and held my hand till I woke up?"

She paused so he could answer.

And waited.

And waited longer.

In a way, his silence was worse than if he had said no.

_He has to think about it._

How can he have to think about it?

"Healer Smethwyk said it was Molly as much as magic that kept Arthur with us," she went on, desperately, now clutching at his robe as it lay over his thigh. "If it was you, I wouldn't be able to stay away, cover or no cover. There are a lot of things worth dying for, but a lie isn't one of them."

With a glance up ahead at the other passengers, Remus laid his hand over hers. "You do know it was never my intent to do anything but protect you, don't you? I couldn't let you lose your job before you even got it, or your reputation. Not for me."

Tonks shook her head. "But I _have_ lost it."

"No--"

"All that stuff about me in the _Prophet_--"

"--made you out to be a victim. _I_ am the villain."

"Not to the Order of the Phoenix!"

Tonks just glimpsed his stunned face before another BANG flung her onto the floor.

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, not offering her the hand up she would've expected from a man who'd just talked about how protective of her he was. Which was a real testament to how shocked he was by what she'd said. Which was one thing she really hadn't meant to go into.

But if it would get the point across....

"You're not the only person in the world who likes to be liked, Remus. Everyone in the Order loves you. Hell," she added, feeling her mouth twist in a sickened expression at the image of Hestia throwing herself at Remus, kissing him, "they're bloody _in_ love with you. But as far as they're concerned about me, I might as well endorse Dolores Umbridge's anti-werewolf legislation."

"Just because they think you broke up with me because of what I am doesn't make you a bigot in their eyes."

"Bollocks!" Tonks shouted from the floor. Even though Remus' gaze drifted over her head, to the other passengers whom she saw out the corner of her eye were watching with undisguised interest, she didn't lower her voice. Maybe it was _because_ he was still so damned worried that she didn't lower her voice.

"Unless you plan on standing up and telling them all our entire torrid love story, which I know you won't Mister Remus John Taciturn Lupin, they'll go right on thinking, even if we are together, that at one point I broke up with you because of what you are!"

Remus extended his hand to her with a rueful smile. "No one would blame you one iota for saying _no, thanks_ to the life a werewolf can offer."

Tonks had grabbed his hand to allow him to pull her up, but her grip went slack, and she fell back onto her bum.

It was just as well, as the BANG at the same moment would have sent her there anyway.

"No one?" she repeated, incredulous. _Not for me...The life a werewolf can offer._ "Not even you?"

Remus remained silent, and did not meet her eyes.

It dawned on Tonks quite suddenly and painfully how poorly Remus thought of himself.

_"How I wish Remus didn't think so lowly of himself,"_ Hestia's accusation reverberated in her memory, _"that he could see how much better he deserves than a young girl too selfish see what you're doing to him by not wearing him proudly on your arm!"_

He didn't see how she saw him. She wasn't sure _how_ he didn't, but somehow he didn't. She couldn't imagine what she'd have done differently, to make him see.

Then again, if she'd realised he saw himself as a man -- not even a man, a Dark Creature, as he'd said this morning -- with nothing to offer, she'd likely have done a lot of things differently. Not that she could think of a single thing right now.

_Except for badgering him about marriage, and saying that having a house meant he was in the position to be your husband._

But if it was the secrecy..._He_ had been the one to impose it on them, hadn't he? After the scandal surrounding his departure from Hogwarts had died down and she was a full-fledged member of the Auror force, she'd thought from time to time that she'd give up the games in a heartbeat if he were okay with it. Or had she'd have done something, said something, that made him think she wouldn't? Maybe it was the fact that she hadn't said anything, that she'd let him take the lead...Maybe he assumed her willingness to follow meant a willingness to hide him.

_You're so young._

Frustration welled. She _was_ young. She only had twenty-two years to his thirty-five, and while the difference in numbers didn't trouble her, or even the experience, really, the lack of communication did. Remus should have known that she was too young, too inexperienced, too naïve, to recognise the fear and insecurity he'd learnt to hide. Why hadn't he shown her more? Was that all that in the name of protection, too? Or didn't he trust her?

"Jus' outside London!" called Stan Shunpike, and Tonks guessed that since Remus, looking over her head, nodded, that the conductor had turned around in his seat to address them.

"You shouldn't ride on the floor," Remus said, offering his hand again.

Tonks was unaware of taking it, but the next thing she knew, the Knight Bus had rolled to a stop, and she, from her seat beside Remus, was looking blankly out the window at decrepit, rubbish-strewn Grimmauld Place, and she and Remus were the only passengers still onboard.

He'd already stood and stepped into the aisle. "Are you coming in?"

Continuing to stare at Numbers Eleven and Thirteen, between which Number Twelve nestled unseen, Tonks pictured Sirius, at the table this morning, looking at her with the same expression that entered his eyes when he spoke of every other member of his family. In the state she was in, she'd either do something brash and wind up duelling him, or she'd just crumple up in a mouldy corner and cry. Which wouldn't help her bolster Remus' self-esteem.

"Depends," she said hollowly.

"On?"

"What we'd be going in as," she said, looking at him. "Would you hold my hand? Call me Elphine in front of Sirius?"

Remus shook his head.

"It wouldn't be fair to you," he said, taking a step backward in the aisle. "I have not been fair to you. If it's a husband you are looking for," he said, turning, "I am afraid you are looking in the wrong place. Forgive me."

Ducking his head, turning up his collar against the bitter January cold, he turned and disembarked the Knight Bus.

"You gettin' orf, Lady?" asked Stan.

Tonks shook her head. "No."

"Where to, then?"

"I don't know. Anywhere."

Stan looked at her for a moment, then, with a grin, slapped the dashboard with his palm. "'ow abou' the Leaky Cauldron? Look like you could do wiff a drink."

"Yeah. I could."

"S'on me," Stan added, gesturing to himself with his thumb.

Tonks thanked him with a quiet, "Ta," then looked out at the window again.

Remus was stood in front of invisible Number Twelve, watching until the Knight Bus vanished with a BANG.

* * *

  
_**A/N: As always, feedback is very much appreciated. This time, reviewers get a drink, courtesy of the Harry Potter wizard of your choice. I guess if you'd like you can have a Squib or a Muggle, too, but I cannot imagine anyone wanting a drink with Filch or Vernon Dursley in return for a review. Remus is, of course, an option, but he might require a bit of cheering up first. Not that most of you would like have much of a problem with that. **_


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue: Little Children, Love One Another**

"As none of you is unaware..."

Professor Dumbledore, Tonks thought, had probably never addressed the Order of the Phoenix like that before at a meeting where Aberforth and Mundungus Fletcher were present. She wondered if he were thinking the same as his blue eyes behind the half-moon spectacles drifted from face to face around the long kitchen table, before finally settling on her and Kingsley, stood by the staircase, at the ready should they be called to duty for the Ministry.

"...especially not," Dumbledore continued, "those of us who, at this very moment, sacrifice a well-earned hour's break from investigating the matter...." His gaze moved back to the Order, taking them all in. "...ten of Voldemort's most dangerous Death Eaters -- the very same masked faces some of us have encountered before -- escaped last night from Azkaban."

Despite the news being a day old now, Tonks half-expected at least a few of the Order members -- Hestia and Molly, namely -- to shudder, and perhaps Dedalus Diggle to startle in his chair and lose his violet top hat. They all, however, stared grimly back at Dumbledore, and if any _were_ afraid, either of the name or of the news, they apparently were determined not to show it.

Some were more grim than others: beside her, Kingsley's jaw muscle twitched beneath his smooth brown skin as he gritted his teeth in frustration that while ten _real_ criminals were on the loose, pressure increased on him to track down Sirius Black -- whose eyes were hard and steely. Sirius had his wand to hand, as if he fully expected Dumbledore to send them out to track down the murdering bastards, granting the Order the same powers the Ministry had placed in the hands of the Aurors last time around. Next to Sirius, Remus watched his mate as though he were reading his thoughts and considering disarming him to stop him leaping into the fray.

Tonks quickly looked away, not wanting Remus to catch her watching him, though she didn't think an _Expelliarmus_ on Sirius would be a bad idea. Even if she had begun to understand him better in the past twenty-four hours than she could have imagined relating to a person she'd barely talked to.

Knowing that Bellatrix Lestrange was at large, seeing the wanted posters plastered up all over the Ministry and Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, had made her more real to Tonks than she ever had been as a faceless aunt her mother kept no photographs of, who was mad and rotting in prison. Rage simmered deep in Tonks' belly to see a resemblance to her mother in that wasted wreck of a face.

Still, she knew that the Death Eaters' madness could only be countered by sanity. However much she'd begun to sympathise with Sirius and feel this battle was personal, she couldn't apply the word _sane_ to him.

_Or yourself at the moment,_ she thought as her eyes darted once more to Remus. _Crap time to quarrel with him, the day before all hell breaks loose. How many times did Robards tell you to get your head in the game and stop thinking about being bleeding related to some of the convicts? If he knew you were having bloke trouble again..._

"I do not gather you here tonight to formulate a battle strategy," Dumbledore went on, as though he, too, had been reading minds, "for though our opponent has nearly doubled his ranks in one night, the time has not yet come for the Order of the Phoenix to take to the field of battle."

Tonks looked to Sirius again, and saw teeth bared and white knuckles clutching his wand so that it was liable to snap. The look only hardened when Remus caught his eye, and Tonks, though put out as she was by their quarrel, felt an almost magnetic pull to cross the room and stand behind Remus. She might have done, if she had not seen, in her peripheral, Dumbledore's thin, long-fingered hand gesture in her direction.

"Though we should not be without hope," he said with a deferential nod at her and Kingsley, "that we must need encounter these ten again. For there are those trained for just these very circumstances, for the apprehension of Dark Wizards and Witches. They may yet bring them once again to justice before the Death Eaters wreak more of the same harm for which they were first imprisoned."

As the Headmaster spoke, Tonks felt that his was not the only gaze upon her. Glancing at the table, she met Molly's brown eyes, which now revealed her fear, pleading painfully with Tonks to stop those who had killed her brothers last time from bereaving her of her babies now. If Tonks' heart had not already hardened in her chest earlier in the day with the conviction that it was _her_ duty to capture Bellatrix -- though the only thread that tied her to the House of Black was a singed one -- to protect her mother, her father, she was certain it would have done now, to protect these others, who had lately become as dear to her as blood kin.

Mad-Eye, too, watched her; he looked old and somehow nostalgic as he appraised the new generation of Aurors who faced the very same crew _he_ had thrown in Azkaban. Though she did not doubt that nothing would satisfy him so much as personally escorting them back to their temporarily vacated cells, she knew he counted on Kingsley and, dear Merlin, on _her_, to see finished the work he had started.

_Conviction aside, Tonks -- do you really think you're up to it?_

Yes. You are more than able.

The answer, the affirmation, did not come from within, but rather was communicated by Remus' eyes as they caught hers. She'd tried not to look at him when she noticed him watching her, but didn't quite manage it to allow her gaze to drift beyond his figure at the table. As his gaze held, she knew that the only way she would be able to look away from him would be if he broke eye contact first.

Of course she couldn't read his expression very well, but her breath caught with the realisation that this time, it was not because that stolid mask he wore hid all, but because he was not wearing it now, and revealed more than she could possibly identify.

His faith was obvious, because she had learnt long ago to believe that he believed in her. Fear mingled with it, which she didn't begrudge him, for if he did not fear for what her chosen path of Dark Wizard Chaser might well bring, he was living in a dream world.

And Remus had made it abundantly clear that he lived nowhere of the sort.

_Not to mention the very first time you met him, you remember, he spoke of Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom as his dear friends -- tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Sodding Lestrange herself._

Tonks also noticed that there was nothing of surprise in his expression, and realised that Remus had known then -- two years ago --- that it was only a matter of time before Voldemort returned and recalled his followers to his service. Nonetheless he had supported her career choice, expressed approval, even -- and had told her later that all along he had her in mind as a recruit when -- not if -- the Order of the Phoenix reconvened. Though he loved her, he had never once tried to protect her from the harsh realities of their world.

_Can he learn not to protect you from the harsh reality that lies within himself? If only you could have that hope...It would be enough. You could keep on..._

"No," Dumbledore, resumed, and Remus' gaze released Tonks as he returned his attention to their leader. "It is not for soldiering that I gather you here tonight. We gather here, quite simply, to gather."

Dumbledore smiled, and looked at the Order with twinkling eyes. A few smiled back -- Professor Snape was _not_ among them; indeed, he looked as perturbed as Sirius about not being called to battle, that he had been drawn from his dungeon chambers to _socialise_.

"For it is in this that we differ from the Death Eaters," Dumbledore continued. "They are the servants of Voldemort -- but you are my friends. Their loyalty to one another exceeds no further than each one's grasp, but each of us joined the Order of the Phoenix in order to protect something beyond ourselves. Be it husbands, or wives, or children, or parents, or friends, or simply fellow human beings. We are here because love's eyes look outward."

_We bear each other up,_ Remus had said. Everything he had told her about the Order of the Phoenix echoed in harmonic counterpoint with Dumbledore's speech as she fingered the Rune of Humanity on her charm bracelet.

"But remember," said Dumbeldore, in a tone that held warning. "We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Look that you do not let the Death Eaters' weakness become your own."

Tonks' eyes went to Hestia, who she was a little surprised to find looking at her. A bit red in the face, as Tonks had felt her own cheeks flush. At the same moment, they mouthed, _I'm sorry._

Glancing across the table, Tonks saw Sirius' eyes downcast. She guessed that he and Remus would be on speaking terms again; but she knew Sirius' fury against Snape would rage all the more bitter.

She looked to Remus beside him, who had been looking at Sirius, but apparently had felt her gaze on him and shifted his to her.

_You're on the same page now. Or want to be._

"Headmaster," Kingsley said quietly in the pause, "Tonks and I--"

"Are needed elsewhere," Dumbledore said, again with the deferential nod. "Know that as you go forth, we hold you in our thoughts, and bid you Godspeed."

"Thank you," said Kingsley. "C'mon, Tonks."

But rather than turning to ascend the stairs, Tonks had stepped toward the table, eyes locked on Remus.

_Oh no -- don't you dare do what you're thinking of doing. Not in front of the whole Order._

She didn't listen to the inner voice of restraint, but instead stumbled around a waste bin en route to the other side of the table.

The legs of Remus' chair scraped against the floor, and he stood.

_He's going to bolt. Or else just brace himself against something he doesn't want to hear._

No! He wants to speak to you! That speech moved him, too! 

Tonks took out her wand, glanced at the Order and muttered an apology, then cast a _Muffliato._

"I don't want to get married," she blurted. "I mean, I do, someday. Maybe. But I'm not ready yet. We're not ready."

"I'm sorry, Elphine," said Remus. "I wish--"

"But I am a Hufflepuff," she cut him off, and he actually gave a little start, his sandy brows shooting high up on his forehead. "People think we're a lot of duffers, but we're not. We're loyal, and hard-working -- and I'm no less loyal or hard-working than any Hufflepuff."

A smile ghosted Remus' face. "That you are a true Hufflepuff," he said, "I have never had a moment's doubt."

"Liar -- remember that one time you asked if I was a Slytherin?"

Again Remus looked wrong-footed, even took a step back from her. "That was--"

"Stupid," she answered for him, unable to stop herself, or the flood of words that tumbled out after. "But I'd been stupid first, so it all cancels out. The point is -- neither of us is perfect, Remus. We can both be absolute idiots. And we've got a whole crapload of problems between us, but that doesn't mean we ought to turn tail and run. You're a Gryffindor -- you face problems. And I'm a Hufflepuff -- I don't give up till I've solved a problem, even if I fall flat on my face -- which I do often -- and have to try again and again."

She paused to catch her breath, and Remus looked a little breathless, as well, as he stared at her. She felt herself wavering, as she felt dozens of eyes on her back, and imagined them all trying to imagine what the hell the crazy young one was going on about.

But she wasn't the sort to profess herself as a Hufflepuff, through-and-through, and then give up before she'd said her piece.

So she continued, though more tentatively than before: "Maybe you'd rather not keep trying with someone who keeps falling flat on her face," she said, not wanting to think about how she'd perform tonight if he said no, he'd rather not. "If you do...I won't give up on you, Remus. Not ever. Even if those darker days do happen for...for werewolves, like you said."

Remus looked gobsmacked, to be sure. She'd have preferred him to look a little touched. Maybe he was -- but his guard was up again, his eyes fixed just to the right of her face.

_You're doing this to him in front of everyone, what do you expect? Work with what you can get._

"Why?" he asked, his voice raw. "Why would you bind yourself to that?"

"Why?" Tonks repeated, her heart constricting painfully, with anger or sadness or both at hearing him talk about himself like that. How had she never noticed before? "Because I love you, you stupid great prat. If I give up on the man I love, how can I hope to stick with anything else in my life?"

A heartbeat of silence, then, a voice:

"Tonks..."

Not Remus' voice.

Kingsley's.

They had a shift to do at the Ministry.

_Damn those Death Eaters to hell._

Tonks looked to Remus, as if to offer him one last chance to speak.

When he did not, she drew in a deep breath, and did her best to smile.

"Right. We'll finish this later? Maybe?"

Still nothing from Remus, who just looked Petrified, and conflicted.

"Night, then." She turned on her heel and, not looking anyone from the Order in the eye as she undid the _Muffliato,_ took a step toward Kingsley--

--but a hand, grasping hers, held her still.

Tonks' eyes fluttered shut as that Snidget which had, apparently, taken up permanent residence in her chest, beat its wings.

Remus' hand, closed around her own.

A gentle tug, toward him, and then--

--he let go of her hand, but only so that his arms could wrap tightly around her waist, holding her tight against him as he pressed his mouth to hers.

_Now_ Hestia and Molly gasped, and a THUNK, followed by a, _Goodness gracious me!_ signified that Dedalus had startled and lost his violet top hat.

_Remus Lupin is kissing you in front of the whole. damn. Order of the Phoenix._

And then he wasn't. He was looking into her eyes, stroking her hair back from her face.

"Be safe tonight -- _Elphine._ I love you."

When Tonks set off into the night, casting one last look at the doorway of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, where Remus stood watching her go, it was with a lighter heart than she had arrived with tonight.

At least one of Voldemort's serpents that had slithered into her path had been crushed.

The rest had better watch their tails.

_The End_


End file.
